Why is it that some people just seem to be 'born' with it? Where did it come from? At what point in the evolutionary cycle was drawing seen as useful? Are todays artists descended from the cavemen that drew over the cave walls? I guess drawing was important in ancient times for communication before writing was invented (actually writing evolved from pictographic symbols). I've researched back into my family tree and I think only one person was good at drawing.

N-mel

04-14-2005, 07:25 PM

I doubt that anyone is actually "born" with natural drawing talent. But some people do have a natural tendecy to develop the talent early and/or quickly. I believe that a combination of specific physical and mental characteristics leads to a person having a greater desire for and fullfillment in drawing/painting/creating. The more a person works at drawing, the more they can learn. This can be a snowball effect, that once a cartain level of mastery is attained, the creator feels more reward in the creation process. Therefore, the desire leads to doing, the doing leads to ability, the ability leads to desire...

Do people enjoy drawing because they are good at it, or are they good at it because they enjoy it? Classic chicken and the egg there. IMHO, the answer is, just do it, and the cycle can begin. Keep doing it, because it only gets better. :)

macievelli

04-14-2005, 07:45 PM

Ok. THis may sound a bit wacky to some, unbelievable to others, just plane rubbish to to still more. Please understand that I write this with the utmost sinserity and seriousness. It is personal, but I can take some ribbing if you need to expresds yourself that way.

For me, the need to draw came about at an extremely early age. Before I could talk very well, or do much of anything, I was drawing...scribbling....trying to get something out.

My creativity stemmed from a past life. Or more precisely, from the need to express and understand past life experiences that were, for one reason or another, quite dramatic.

I did not come to this realization until I was an adult. Through talks with my mother trying to find out about my behavior as a small child and through past-life regression sessions I learned more about where my desire to create stemmed from.

At an age when most children were drawing stick figures and scribbling with crayons on walls, even before I could talk, all my drawings were of tanks and airplanes and machine guns and explosions. Scenes of combat and death and destruction coming from a child of about 3 or 4. My mother actually saved some of my drawings from that time. There are technically accurate, detailed images of weapons and armor. Not just a stick figure holding any old gun, but a detailed AK47. At 3 years old. I could not explain it. Could you? Mind you, this was in 1970, and I was not exposed to mass media, or media of any kind, except cartoons. I was not allowed to watch other kinds of TV at that age, or so my mother says. She could never understand it either, so she has told me. So, that being said, where did my knowledge of this stuff come from?

I have come to understand (and believe) that it is from a past life as a soldier; One that died during the vietnam conflict. I won't go into much detail on my regressions or my findings and verification here. SUffice it to say that I found out who I was/am. Name, serial number, rank, place of birth, unit, squadron, place/time/method of my death, etc. All of it info I spoke out loud during regression and then verified after through months of research in databases and through the net. It solved a lot of mysteries for me.

So, all this being said, I know where my creativity came from: The need to express. Through my life I continued to draw, being praised for my efforts by a very nurturing family and several teachers. I was urged to continue from early on, which had an awful lot to do with it, I think. It has always been about the need to not only communicate the imagery I had in my head, but the need to make my ideas more concrete so that I could analyze and understand myself. It is almost as though there is a tornado of imagery in my head all the time, and that I am alwatys trying to disseminate that information, sifting through the ideas and images to decide what to keep and what to let go on by into the maelstrom. I grab ahold of an idea and try to wrestle it out of my minds eye and onto the canvas or screen or paper. In that way I was not only providing a kind of therapy for myself, but also opening the doors to my own perceptions. In doing so I was able to refine that process and continue to feed and develop it.

I have never been certain that I wholly agree with the idea of a "God given talent" per se. I am comfortable and solid in my religious beliefs, yet find a unanswerable conflict with this past life experience. However, the idea that God has given me a talent is not so believable to me as is the notion that I've been blessed with an unquechable desire to continue to learn it, to express ideas and to develop using different media to express myself. THAT is what God has given me, I think. In believing that God bestows talent only to certain individuals, you eliminate everyone else. In my experience EVERYONE has innate ability. What they lack is the desire/experience/temperment/stick-to-it-iveness to develop that. I believe anyone can become an excellent artist if they practice and learn. It takes TIME and DESIRE. That God gave me, and I am eternally thankful. I feel very blessed with my life and what it has been for me.

Well, now that I've exposed my inner workings to the masses here, I hope you all don't think I'm a total looney. I've had a very rewarding life and a great career as an artist working in a variety of mediums over the last 20 years. I am a bit on the wacky side, which makes life a lot more interesting, but then I don't know too many artists or creative types that haven't got a few screws loose. Thank God for that.

It's the "normal" (whatever that is) people in the world that scare the hell out of me...the ones that never show any signs of deviating from what is generally accepted by western society. Perfect job, perfect car, wife, kids, house, hair, etc. Those are usually the folks that have the most problems when they get behind closed doors, behind the white picket fences of suburbia, behind the office doors of middle management.

Give me a web site full of creative free-thinking right-brainers any day.

Per-Anders

04-14-2005, 08:37 PM

no-one is. those that seem to be "naturally talented" infact work damn hard at it. they simply spend a lot more time drawing and they enjoy it.

the only possibly advantage some may have is in general intelligence, analytical and perceptive abilities.

oh and those that are aware of how poor their work is tend to work at it harder at it, and learn better critical analysis so they can tell why their drawing suck. then they easily superceed any percieved "natural talent" in others, after all, anyone that thinks their work is good isn't going to improve any.

Ravix

04-14-2005, 09:57 PM

I have been drawing in different stages of my live , im not the best on shading and all thats stuff but is not beacuse i cant do it is just beacuse i dont wnat to do it u have to love it and u will get it right , i was surprised when i was on first term learning how to draw and how easy came to me , but i just dont have the paticience any more I prefer to use computer to expres my idea. people who like to draw defenitly are gona get better with the time. and they probably have some advantage for the simple fact they put their minds into paper. another thing, i think u cant tell that u born with the skill when ur parents have been drawing all their life and u born and u feel like drawing too all the time.

I hate drawing!! wheres the cntrl Z?

Keith Osborn

04-15-2005, 12:53 AM

Talent is innate. There are folks can naturally draw well with little or no training. Skill is a proficiency that's developed. There are certainly those who initially are quite poor at it. However, through patience and much practice can become a skilled draughtsman. Sadly, there are some folks who will never be an accomplished draughtsman no matter how much time and energy they devote to it. Most people fall between the two extremes.

AdamantiumKnot

04-15-2005, 12:58 AM

I've always just been naturally talented at drawing. There were kids at my high school who took lessons for years and just couldn't grasp some concept. I'm not sure what decides it or where it comes from, but I'm happy I have it. I have drawing, my sister has singing.

I guess you can work on it to an extent, and develop your talent, but you're right some people definitely just naturally get it.

tjabba

04-15-2005, 03:39 AM

I doubt that anyone is actually "born" with natural drawing talent.

Yes, sure, just like no one is born with natural abilities in music, mathematics, and sports, and no one is born with any disabilities either... we're all born completely equal, little carbon-copies, or at least we have to pretend we are here in this forum, because otherwise some members will feel bad.

Dearmad

04-15-2005, 05:48 AM

Yes, sure, just like no one is born with natural abilities in music, mathematics, and sports, and no one is born with any disabilities either... we're all born completely equal, little carbon-copies, or at least we have to pretend we are here in this forum, because otherwise some members will feel bad.

Oh, finally. A sane voice. Now prepare for the flames. :argh:

I had a friend in 1st grade who drew nearly as well and as stylistically as Todd McFarlane draws. It was amazing. The kid was in 1st grade with me. Still have a sketch of his.

Talent.

nobodee

04-15-2005, 07:11 AM

Practice and genes, that's all you need. I'm pretty much sure your talents depend on your genes - well, at least a little. Though practice can make even a person without talent very good at drawing.

Jenela

04-15-2005, 09:53 AM

Lots of people are naturally talented at drawing, but they don't know yet, or they never will. Talent is worthless and meaningless when you don't develop it. Talent makes it only easier to learn something, but that's all. Talent will only mean something special when the talented person works hard on it to develop it.

INFINITE

04-15-2005, 10:12 AM

I believe you are born with it. Sure you can learn or add to your skills.

It is a simple as that, nearly all the kids in my class at school literally could'nt draw or paint anything. I couldnt understand it and it was like that all the way throught the 4 different schools I went too. On average maybe 1/2 good artist's in each year.

:wise:

I N F I N I T E

Enayla

04-15-2005, 12:18 PM

I’d like to think that it’s a combination of genetics and lots of hard training. I’ve been drawing obsessively since I was little – I’ve always had something of an aptitude for it: I understood colours when I was very little and my level of interest in painting has always been high. What I think I inherited from my mother is a love for painting and an eye for details and colours that has made it a bit easier for me to progress, but I got to where I am with a lot of work.

I’m always insulted to some degree, though, when people tell me how lucky I am… to have been given this gift by god. For me, who is not religious, and who knows how much work I’ve put into getting where I am… just putting it down to receiving a gift from someone or other feels quite degrading.

artjunkie

04-15-2005, 01:12 PM

Interesting topic for sure...

I once believed you had to be born with talent to become a great artist... I do NOT belive that anymore. Once in art school, I saw how much my technical skills developed (as did others with less obvious talent). Hard work, patience and a passion for art is all that's required to become good... or even GREAT! People who seem to be drawing & creating at an early age (I was one), just seem to progress further quicker because of the inherent interest or passion for it.

ANYONE can learn to draw or paint... just takes hard work and a great desire to learn. That's my belief anyhoo... try it and see!

ElfGirlKimmy

04-15-2005, 08:50 PM

I think people are born with some natural tendencies to be good at certain things. I don't believe its necessarily genetic, and I don't believe that people can't learn to be good at certain things. But it seems people are drawn to certain activities, and that attraction to them motivates people to work at and improve upon those interests.

I've eprsonally been drawing since before I can remember, and according my mother (and others) I've always had a knack for it. And I've seen people who spend hours and hours every week trying to learn to draw/improve their drawing without much luck. So I can;t disregard talent completely, I think its a factor that plays into the process. Its just not the ultimate deciding factor. <3

greynite1

04-15-2005, 09:09 PM

I started out wanting to draw and drawing crappy. Then I actually started to take art and drawing classes and I literally saw myself improve its hard to explain I just started drawing a bit steadier and found it to be very fun and relaxing but more importantly it motivated me further to become better at it and learn more techniques. Been doing CG in the engineering area for the longest time and wanted to become an artist. I had similar fears at the talent thing because I saw my cousin and my fiancee who are just incredible artists and draughtsmen. I often had and kinda still have the fear that I would never catch up but I have been seeing myself steadily improve and want to keep on working. So I agree that I think alot of it is passion, desire and hardwork that can make someone a great artist.

greynite1

04-15-2005, 11:34 PM

The thing is not everybody was encouraged to do so when we were younger. Growing up my parents and family never really encouraged arts or anything but science, math and tech. I was also kind of a hyper kid so my mom told me that they never tried to hard with the art because they felt I would never sit still. which is dumb because I didn't stand still for the other stuff either.

My grandma was always pressuring me to become a doctor all I knew was it involved like a decade or extra schooling so I said no thanks.

in my high school there was NO visual arts program but there was music and drama and I opted for drama. Funny that should have tipped me off about the whole arts thing.

Now i'm very much into CGI which is about as cross disciplinary as you can get. funny how that works. :)

ThePhotographer

04-16-2005, 12:01 AM

Some people have a natural talent and if they work on it, they can easily get very great, but it's not only a question of being able to draw something realistically - let's say "copy from nature". There's more to it.

Everybody can learn how to draw something realistically. In my young days, I took a course in a museum and we weren't really taught anything. The teacher would just drop by once a week with a piece of cloth and ask us "can I do what I would like to do?". If we said "no", he wouldn't do anything. If we said "yes", he would take the cloth and wipe out a part of our charcoal drawing (very big lifesize drawings which would take months to finish).

It was all about learning to draw ONLY what you see and NOT inventing something which wasn't really anywhere else but in our minds.

So learning to draw correctly is only a matter of patience - everybody can learn it.

What is more complicated is to make interesting pictures with it and developping a personal style. Composition, subject, color combinations etc. Although there are lots of theories out there to study, I personally think that it is to some extend a very personal matter - that some people get it right quite naturally and others don't.

ozhaver

04-16-2005, 02:51 AM

Ok. THis may sound a bit wacky to some, unbelievable to others, just plane rubbish to to still more. Please understand that I write this with the utmost sinserity and seriousness. It is personal, but I can take some ribbing if you need to expresds yourself that way.

For me, the need to draw came about at an extremely early age. Before I could talk very well, or do much of anything, I was drawing...scribbling....trying to get something out.

My creativity stemmed from a past life. Or more precisely, from the need to express and understand past life experiences that were, for one reason or another, quite dramatic.

I did not come to this realization until I was an adult. Through talks with my mother trying to find out about my behavior as a small child and through past-life regression sessions I learned more about where my desire to create stemmed from.

At an age when most children were drawing stick figures and scribbling with crayons on walls, even before I could talk, all my drawings were of tanks and airplanes and machine guns and explosions. Scenes of combat and death and destruction coming from a child of about 3 or 4. My mother actually saved some of my drawings from that time. There are technically accurate, detailed images of weapons and armor. Not just a stick figure holding any old gun, but a detailed AK47. At 3 years old. I could not explain it. Could you? Mind you, this was in 1970, and I was not exposed to mass media, or media of any kind, except cartoons. I was not allowed to watch other kinds of TV at that age, or so my mother says. She could never understand it either, so she has told me. So, that being said, where did my knowledge of this stuff come from?

I have come to understand (and believe) that it is from a past life as a soldier; One that died during the vietnam conflict. I won't go into much detail on my regressions or my findings and verification here. SUffice it to say that I found out who I was/am. Name, serial number, rank, place of birth, unit, squadron, place/time/method of my death, etc. All of it info I spoke out loud during regression and then verified after through months of research in databases and through the net. It solved a lot of mysteries for me.

So, all this being said, I know where my creativity came from: The need to express. Through my life I continued to draw, being praised for my efforts by a very nurturing family and several teachers. I was urged to continue from early on, which had an awful lot to do with it, I think. It has always been about the need to not only communicate the imagery I had in my head, but the need to make my ideas more concrete so that I could analyze and understand myself. It is almost as though there is a tornado of imagery in my head all the time, and that I am alwatys trying to disseminate that information, sifting through the ideas and images to decide what to keep and what to let go on by into the maelstrom. I grab ahold of an idea and try to wrestle it out of my minds eye and onto the canvas or screen or paper. In that way I was not only providing a kind of therapy for myself, but also opening the doors to my own perceptions. In doing so I was able to refine that process and continue to feed and develop it.

I have never been certain that I wholly agree with the idea of a "God given talent" per se. I am comfortable and solid in my religious beliefs, yet find a unanswerable conflict with this past life experience. However, the idea that God has given me a talent is not so believable to me as is the notion that I've been blessed with an unquechable desire to continue to learn it, to express ideas and to develop using different media to express myself. THAT is what God has given me, I think. In believing that God bestows talent only to certain individuals, you eliminate everyone else. In my experience EVERYONE has innate ability. What they lack is the desire/experience/temperment/stick-to-it-iveness to develop that. I believe anyone can become an excellent artist if they practice and learn. It takes TIME and DESIRE. That God gave me, and I am eternally thankful. I feel very blessed with my life and what it has been for me.

Well, now that I've exposed my inner workings to the masses here, I hope you all don't think I'm a total looney. I've had a very rewarding life and a great career as an artist working in a variety of mediums over the last 20 years. I am a bit on the wacky side, which makes life a lot more interesting, but then I don't know too many artists or creative types that haven't got a few screws loose. Thank God for that.

It's the "normal" (whatever that is) people in the world that scare the hell out of me...the ones that never show any signs of deviating from what is generally accepted by western society. Perfect job, perfect car, wife, kids, house, hair, etc. Those are usually the folks that have the most problems when they get behind closed doors, behind the white picket fences of suburbia, behind the office doors of middle management.

Give me a web site full of creative free-thinking right-brainers any day.

Doesn't sound wacky to me. My mom saved my first doodle done with a pen: a worm inside a tv...I did it when I was barely a year and a half. I relate to your story a lot. Then again, I never paid much attention to graphite pencils until I was 16. And nowadays I stay away from ink and markers, but you get the idea...I think I feel like I am obliged to do art- so to me it's a love-hate relationship. It is my calling but also my burden.

ashakarc

04-16-2005, 03:43 AM

Like others, I will not theorize as much as tell my personal experience with drawing. Like most kids, I had a love-hate relationship with drawings. If turns good, and my teacher likes it, then it is good, and I enjoy making another one. I was never connected to the drawings I do, they were spontaneous acts. At the age of 17, got into architecture school. I realized that I had extreme difficulty expressing my ideas that I had in my mind. After a while, I figured that my weakness was drawing. Started drawing everyone I know as a Live model, and everyday. Two years later, I had my personal exhibition, and was on top of my class, and graduated the first with three first prize national student competitions under my belt.

Hard work pays off. This is the bottom line. Excelling beyond hardwork, is what most people consider as "talent" or natural gift whether you believe in the Creation or the Evolution.

I still tell my students at the Digital Design class, You must have a good hand to draw, CG by itself is not enough.

A great read about this wonderful organic relationship between the brain and the hand is "Abstracting Craft: The practiced Digital Hand" by Malcolm McCullough

virtualmic

04-16-2005, 03:49 AM

I’d like to think that it’s a combination of genetics and lots of hard training. I’ve been drawing obsessively since I was little – I’ve always had something of an aptitude for it: I understood colours when I was very little and my level of interest in painting has always been high. What I think I inherited from my mother is a love for painting and an eye for details and colours that has made it a bit easier for me to progress, but I got to where I am with a lot of work.

I’m always insulted to some degree, though, when people tell me how lucky I am… to have been given this gift by god. For me, who is not religious, and who knows how much work I’ve put into getting where I am… just putting it down to receiving a gift from someone or other feels quite degrading.

Wow, this is so inspiring. Me, myself am no good at drawing presently. But have started practising, and have already started showing improvements. I too feel that I have some aptitude for it, but born with an in-built drawing mechanism... NO!

sA

Hypergolica

04-16-2005, 05:17 AM

I beleive that artistic people are genetically predisposed to seeing the world differently. The difference between those who can draw and those who can't falls into 2 major catagories. The first is that the artist is born with the ability to visually break down the world around him or her into segments of lines and arcs, shades and colors. And the second is the drive to reproduce what they see. Many people can draw but they lack the drive. Many others cannot draw but have all the drive in the world. I think the artistic ability makes artists different from non-artists in the most fundimental of fashions. Like most artists, at an early age pencils began to move in my hand. My eye constantly scanned the difference between what I had drawn and the actual form I was looking at and I caught on to this at an alarming rate, much higher than other kids. Artists are complex beings and what makes them artists is equally complex.

cha0t1c1

04-16-2005, 05:32 AM

I started drawing actual architectural blueprints at 11, watercolour painting of scenery at 7. I think that drawing at an early age is no big deal... :shrug:

princesslulu

04-16-2005, 06:14 AM

I can't understend...-0-

lanedaughtry

04-16-2005, 06:15 AM

I disagree with people that say there aren't those who are naturally talented. I do however think that if you wanted to break it down you could isolate those who instead of trying to "figure out" how to draw, instead began to use whatever tools they had for marking on something and began to recreate what they saw around them or was in their heads.

I always had a prediliction towards being able to render forms of whatever. 3D came very naturally to me too.

To become good though I had to work very hard at it. I'm still working hard at it.

-L

greynite1

04-16-2005, 07:35 PM

I just think people are saying that its possible for others who didn't have that experience to become good as well. For instance I am just starting to really work hard at trying to become a concept artist it would suck for me to put all this work in then have someone tell me that if I didn't start drawing at 3 there was no hope for me to really go anywhere with it. For my own sanity and hope I choose to believe that hard work, determination and imagination can get me just as far as if I had natural talent (not sure that I don't but you know) albeit if my natural talent had been encouraged earlier I'm sure I would be much further along so I prefer to go with the idea that its never too late.

_slvl

04-16-2005, 07:52 PM

According to Iain McCaig (designed Queen Amadalia and Darth Maul in Star Wars) on one of the Gnomon dvd's anyone can become a good drawer in a year if he practices every day an hour or so.

So, there's hope!! :thumbsup:

Chris Bacon

04-16-2005, 07:55 PM

Ok what is drawing......I meen the real basics of it.........its all hand eye coordanation(if thats how its spelt) and thats somthing that could give primative man who had it an advntage over someone who hasnt got it....it gives you more accuacy when frowing...and catching....it enebles you to create things like clothing quicker keeping the elements away from your body......and as we evolved to become more artistic creating things like jewlery and paintigs which would have given people with it a advantage by appeaing to a potentual partners vanaty....bare in mind weve had 10'000 years of artistic capability....thats a long time to evolve and develpe theses skills......so in our past and even now being artistic gives you a advantage in getting a partner....which is what evolution is all about.....

hope you understand

greynite1

04-16-2005, 08:04 PM

Its just a theory so nobody get mad :)

Do you folks think that based on the previous post that artistic skill and perhaps talent are innate is because these things are encouraged in some and not others. For instance two kids both who start doodling and drawing at a young age. Both lets just say are equally good now one kid has parents who believe in more practical things and tell him to stop screwing around with the doodles and focus on something else. The practice and use of the skills and hand eye coordination needed to develop good drawing talents, habits and skills are never developed.

Now the second kid has parents who enjoy art and artistic expression and not only encourage kid 2s artistic expression but help facilitate it thus this child is given the training and practice neccesary to become good at an early age. So this kid goes on loving what he does and becomes say Feng zhu or Carlos Huente.

My theory is that what we call talent is really just the early and continued development in the hand eye coordination training neccesary for someone to become a practiced artist young. They already know the tools and have understood how shading and lighting works at an earlier age.

Make sense? what do you guys think?

rebuilder

04-16-2005, 08:31 PM

If you ask me, drawing is mostly NOT hand-eye coordination. It is about seeing first and foremost. People don't draw badly because their hand wobbles. Having a steady hand is helpful to be sure, but knowledge of anatomy etc. are not in the hand.

I'm inclined to say technical skill and talent are two different things. Anyone can become technically proficient, although some will get there easier and are more likely to want to put enough effort into improving. Talent is what you do with that skill, the strength of your personal vision if you will.

Chris Bacon

04-16-2005, 11:05 PM

the reason I think its hand eye cordantion is...when I was doing life drawing, we all started from the same background so we knew equal amounts about anatomy ect.....but some people were beter then other......and I think its becouse the ones who were better had better cordanation....this doent meen that there hand were more sterdy....but they could draw what there eye's were seeing better.....Its happened to me from time to time....i'll be drawing a object and I'll be going crazy over some sill angle I cant work out.....now the interesting thing is that answers right there......the angles right of me....its not hiding I just cant get becouse my hand eye cordanation isnt as good as I'd like.......

thats my argument......

jmBoekestein

04-16-2005, 11:20 PM

VIVEC, are you dislexic by any chance. I'm not kidding. Reading about "hand cordantion" is a weird experience contextually speaking. Just kidding around you know:)

moose2k1

04-17-2005, 04:25 PM

For me, I never really knew I could draw until I one day picked up a pencil and paper and started doodling, I think it was during math class!

But I recall distinctly that one day I went to sleep, I actually dreamed how to draw, really wierd. I woke up and then started drawing and it worked... In my dream, I learned to imagine what I was going to draw, and then copy what was in my mind, that I would see the image in a drawing vs. seeing it from life, and then draw from my mind...

So the trick is over the years, to be able to hold onto that drawing in my mind with all the details and coorilate it to my hand... hence the term eye/hand coordination!

Not sure if this technique works for all, but early on it worked for me pretty well. =)

eparts

04-17-2005, 09:03 PM

to be good at drawing doesnt mean just to be good with your hands, be accurate and so on. I think its about being observant, know how things look.. and why they look. but this depends on what you are drawing ofcourse.

another skill is to be very hard against yourself.. being able to see when you are drawing bad.. self critic is good :)
People say that im very good at drawing too, that i got a talent. I dont think so! when i was in kindergarden i didnt really make anything nice (not only that i was 5, but compared to others) but lots of work and study really pays off. draw draw draw! i dont think you have to draw alot to get better, just put more effort in doing it. interresting thread.. ive allways been bothered with this. personally i dont think i have a talent at all. im just patient

Verboten

04-17-2005, 09:40 PM

Education and instruction is also vital in art. I noticed that after immediate instructions my drawing performance was much higher then attempting to do the same drawing in 3 months.
Do you know a genius artist who never studied art? Durer even travelled to Italy to meet famous mathematician of that time to solve some of the perspective and simmetry calculation questions and issues and adopted some of Leonardo, Caravaggio color and shape "language". he wouldnt be the "detail master" if he didnt do that.
Every Great Master you know, had a Great Master as a teacher-except God himself. period.

Chris Bacon

04-18-2005, 01:47 AM

VIVEC, are you dislexic by any chance. I'm not kidding. Reading about "hand cordantion" is a weird experience contextually speaking. Just kidding around you know:)

.................thanks...............

StealthPharaoh

04-18-2005, 04:38 AM

just my thought on the subject..i also don't think anyone is born an artist or musician..sure genes are important but the children surroundings when they are very young are more important

all children start to be good at 2 or 3 things when they are very young..and that will depend on their surroundings..if there were papers and colors around them, they will start messing around with them and they may like it or may not..if they liked it then they will keep doing it and that's when u can start noticing that they are gifted..and that's what i think genes do..if the parents loved art then their children will most likely like it too when they have a chance to draw very early..
some children are grown up around cars and toys..they will most likely be into cars and mechanic work..specially if their parents were too

also u don't inherit everything from your father and mother..u can inherit something from ur grand grand father

another important thing is artistic blocks..u can have that talent or gift when u're young but if u don't develop it u might lose it forever or will be very hard to get back to it..
this can happen during anytime in your life but it usually happens early if there wasn't enough encourgment, attention or motivation

for me for example it happend to me littlle bit later in my life and i think i'm still struggling to get that motivation and love for art that i used to have when i was a kid..
and i think most artists also get this art blocks later in their life..those that get it early are most likely involved in something totally different now

so motivation is very important..i believe the best artists are the most motivated because then they try to learn more and practice more which makes them better..

as far as getting better and being really good at what u do..it all comes with knowledge, practice and hard work
i don't think some artists are better than me because they are more talented or gifted but because they are more motivated and work harder to reach their goals..

so do i believe that some artists are naturally gifted..yes but that gift that i think of is motivation itself..u don't learn to be motivated or practice to be motivated..it just comes to u..and motivation is the key that leads to the rest
but skill is not a gift..it's something u learn and comes with practice

tjabba

04-18-2005, 05:55 AM

that will depend on their surroundings..if there were papers and colors around them, they will start messing around with them...if they liked it then they will keep doing it and that's when u can start noticing that they are gifted..and that's what i think genes do..

No, that's the opposite to what genes do, that's the environment. The environment and the genes are 2 completely separate factors that have nothing to do with each other, but both influence us. Exactly how much each influences is still a question the scientists argue about, but it's pretty much agreed now that both play big parts.

Motivation - again, something completely different from talent. And again, both play a vital role. You can be a big success with a little of one and a lot of the other, but best is of course a lot of both. But what you CAN'T do is become a success with zero of one, no matter how much you have of the other. It's like multiplying something by zero.

Talent is obviously genetic. Now the really interesting discussion would be, is motivation genetic or environmental?

StealthPharaoh

04-18-2005, 07:36 AM

u kinda quote half the sentence
surroundings are the same as environment..
and what i meant about genes is that it's what makes or influence someone to like or dislike something in a certain environment..and i said that surroundings or environment are more important than genes in my opinion because even if u inherited the talent but never been around papers and colors this talent is useless

and talent is just a word not used correctly..it's when someone is good at something like art or music when people use it..but talent can be in anything else like soccer,basketball,fixing cars or playing video games..but u don't see people saying u're talented soccer player or talented mechanic..they use other words..so talent is just being good at anything not just art and it have nothing to do with being gifted

and in opinion motivation or how much u love something is that gift that we're talking about that comes naturally..so yes it's different from talent
and i think motivation is genetic and enviromental...but how much motivation u have,that's the gift

Poppi

04-18-2005, 03:12 PM

There has never been a time in my life when I did not draw. I used to use a stick in the sand, before I was old enough to know what a "crayon" was. Even as an adult, I am constantly doodling....anytime my hands aren't working on something. Often, I try and copy these doodles with my sketch tool in lightwave, and start models of them. I don't know if I was actually born with any talent, just a compulsion. Also, I do not consciously think of what I am drawing. My little sketches seem to come from an unconcious part of my brain.

tjabba

04-18-2005, 06:08 PM

environment are more important than genes in my opinion because even if u inherited the talent but never been around papers and colors this talent is useless
irrelevant, almost everyone today is exposed to paper etc, for most of our lives. Doesn't prove anything, except that you need a certain minimum level of civilisation to let talent show itself.

and talent is just a word not used correctly.. ........................
talent is just being good at anything not just art and it have nothing to do with being gifted

I know the word "talent" can mean many different things, but to stay on topic I think we should accept the definition implied in the title ("naturally talented"), and in most of the replies.

JamesMK

04-18-2005, 06:20 PM

VIVEC, are you dislexic by any chance.
That's "dyslexic" incidently :D

Ringlord111

04-18-2005, 07:21 PM

First off, if we all were naturally talented at birth in drawing or art, in reality, none of us would. These God given talents are something, well given by God. Everyone is gifted in some way, some may not be born great at art, well too bad, you have something that I dont have though. So be greatful for what you do have. And if we were all gifted in the same thing, then, well, we wouldnt get much done, would we. Where are the musicians, the teachers, the astronauts, the scholars, the managers, the people-pleasers, etc. if we were all given the talent of art. Think about it, and dont complain. Find what you were given, and work on it. You will find that thing that you are talented at, that you were given at birth, and you will like it. Thats why we are all different, and we all are gifted differently. FIND IT, STOP COMPLAINING! YOU ARE WASTING TIME COMPLAINING AND WHINING! (That is a message for those that are complaining and whining, you know who you are). God bless.

-Matt M.

rebuilder

04-18-2005, 08:13 PM

That's "dyslexic" incidently :D

And that's "incidentally"...

StealthPharaoh

04-18-2005, 09:02 PM

tjabba: i don't see what's the point of quoting half the senteces to try to prove something.
it's like you try to take only the words u need and quote it..lol

and you don't make much sense to me with your replys..how can u say what i said is irrelevant because everyone is exposed to papers too. what i said was that if u inherited a certain talent but never been exposed to papers and colors for example then this talent is usless..

if u inherited some drawing talent but been around cars and toys only when u're a kid, u think u're still naturally talented..no of course because u didn't have the opportunity to develop anything. you can pick up drawing later in your life and be good at it one day but that doesn't mean u're naturally talented

buttom line what i'm trying to say being gifted is when u're are motivated to certain things when u are a kid..genes influnece you to like certain things but withought an artistic environment your motivation is not going to be about art but something else around you

but anyways, this is just my opinion u can agree or disagree..

Aniviel

04-18-2005, 09:09 PM

Talent. What's talent? When a person excels in something for some inexplicable reason and appears to be 'naturally' good at it?

I think it's such a huge combination of everything everyone's already listed. Maybe people have a latent aptitude for, drawing, in this case, that's already there, but without motivation or enjoyment the 'talent' might never be developed. Anyway. I don't think 'talent' per se in that way that I see it perceived by many people is so important. You have to work to the level of skill you want to get to, and to get to that level you should enjoy doing so. That's my opinion, put simply.

As for myself, some people say that I'm skilled with a pencil and the level of 'accuracy' I've reached in rendering realism is talent. I don't know. I don't think so. All I know is that I draw excessively, and look at art almost obsessively, and from those things combined as well as others, I must have learned something along the way.

Bah. Now that I've thought about this some more, I really don't know. I'm not sure about 'talent' at all.

Stahlberg

04-19-2005, 08:38 AM

To try to find some answers I did a google on "talent genes art", here some highlights.
interesting read about lots of things, including heredity
http://www.isteve.com/2002_QA_Steven_Pinker.htm

UPI: A widespread criticism among hostile reviewers has been: "You say that genes affect how people behave. Doesn't everybody know this already? Why write a book about it?"
Pinker: In their hearts, most people know it, especially people with more than one child. But many people deny it when they switch into intellectualizing mode. For example, many parenting studies measure a correlation between parenting practices and children's outcomes and conclude that parenting made the difference -- jabbering at your kids advances their language skills, spanking them makes them more violent and so forth. They ignore the fact that parents provide their children with genes, not just an environment, so talkative parents may pass on genes for talkativeness to their children.

another, more about creativity:
http://www.uchsc.edu/news/bridge/2004/May%202004/art_med.html

A quote I found on dyslexia: :)
It is widely held opinion that dyslexia is associated with remarkably artistic creativity. Speculations on different brain structures and brain functions have been proposed as an explanation. Two studies are reported on the prevalence of dyslexia among university students—one group of art students and one group of students from non-art disciplines. The admission to the art schools were extremely demanding, possibly implying that the students were genuinely talented, and that their choice of training did not reflect a compensation for failure in conventional academic fields. Art academy students reported significantly more signs of dyslexia than non-art university students. Objective testing showed that art students had significantly poorer phonological skills than non-art students. Thus, according to self-reports combined with objective testing, the incidence of dyslexia was far higher among art students.

Skjoldbroder

04-19-2005, 11:20 AM

It's an interesting and long-standing debate, isn't it. I used to be all in favour of 'environmental influences are the only things that matter in shaping your personality', but especially after reading two books on geneticism and natural selection by Richard Dawkins ('The Selfish Gene' and 'The Extended Phenotype') I've moved towards the train of thought that genetic heritage plays a much bigger part in who we are than most people think.
If you're into darwinism and that whole caboodle, I can only recommend his books. ('The Selfish Gene' basically explain (his theory of) how life came to be)

Anyways. From my own point of view, I was good at drawing when I was a kid (well "good" as in "I didn't draw eyes that looked like almonds") but kinda went away from it a while because my parents didn't actively encourage it. So now I'm missing some of those things people say you pick up so easily when you're a kid. I'll try to be more attentive towards those things with my kids :)

Jauhar2k4

04-19-2005, 11:54 AM

macievieli are you talking about reincarnation?

SoniaNotRed

04-19-2005, 11:57 PM

I believe in the talent (genetic\innate hability) and practice (aquired skill) theory.
I think everyone is born with a greater predisposition towards a specific area, in greater or lesser degrees (hence the more average talent and the genius), and that this can be further developed by practice.

In my experience, practice alone won't solve everything. I've known people who worked real hard at drawing for years and, apparently, will never be that good at it.
In my case, I always liked sciences and even maths, but could never do a thing with them. My brain just seems unable to function in terms of numbers and logic - when I started school, I always carried a bag of beans with me because adding a group of 5 things with a group of 3 got me confused!
OK, practice (and a larger brain, most likely!) got me over that problem but I could never get past equations systems and I'm a lousy programmer.
Is it that I'm just dumb?
Because, when it comes to arts I often seem to know what to do even before I get to learn anything. Sometimes, it's like I just look at things and, BAM!, I know how it works - everything just falls into place.
Of course, since I hardly ever draw, I'm not that good at it, either. Yet I'm still ahead of those people I mentioned.
I've also known people that by practice alone became technically far better than me, but their work, compared to others that practiced and were "born with it" tends to look pretty dull. It happens a lot with photographers and 3Ders - people that learn all there is to know about their areas (rules, laws, technical stuff) but never manage to do an interesting work of art.

I guess one never really gets there while lacking one of the 2 things, like someone here said.

Verboten

04-20-2005, 04:59 AM

It is widely held opinion that dyslexia is associated with remarkably artistic creativity. Speculations on different brain structures and brain functions have been proposed as an explanation. Two studies are reported on the prevalence of dyslexia among university students—one group of art students and one group of students from non-art disciplines. The admission to the art schools were extremely demanding, possibly implying that the students were genuinely talented, and that their choice of training did not reflect a compensation for failure in conventional academic fields. Art academy students reported significantly more signs of dyslexia than non-art university students. Objective testing showed that art students had significantly poorer phonological skills than non-art students. Thus, according to self-reports combined with objective testing, the incidence of dyslexia was far higher among art students.
That maks me an artist for sure. I have dislexia and you dont want to see my quigli wigli writing...

igorstshirts

04-24-2005, 06:05 AM

Hey... I thought you guys might like these. Jeff Scott Campbell (of Gen13 and Danger Girl fame, currently working on a new title called Wildsiderz) did these in HIGH SCHOOL. He was a few years younger then me but his sister and my sister were good friends there (Gateway in Aurora Colorado). These were run as yearbook foldouts... Note the improvements from year to year! Sophomore,
http://www.igorstshirts.com/temp/jsc1.jpg

Junior,
http://www.igorstshirts.com/temp/jsc2.jpg

igorstshirts

04-24-2005, 06:08 AM

Senior! What did the art in you guys' yearbooks look like?:) This guy's friggin' talented!
http://www.jscottcampbell.com
http://www.igorstshirts.com/temp/jsc3.jpg

SuperMax

04-24-2005, 06:25 AM

only 15 years old

http://www.kmd.ukme.com/

agreenster

04-24-2005, 06:36 AM

In my opinion, it's all a matter of speed. If you're not naturally gifted, you can still ultimately become a great artist, but it will take you longer than someone with talent who picks it up right away.

Most of us are a mixture of both. Practice makes perfect.

Per-Anders

04-24-2005, 06:37 AM

i still disagree with most peoples views in this thread and say it's all about what you learn, and what you put in. no-one comes into the world able to draw well, but anyone can learn. saying that it's about some innate and mysterious "talent" is a poor excuse for failings, and a poor way to underplay others hard work. "oh so theyr'e 'just' talented are they, well that's ok then."

Faber

04-24-2005, 12:50 PM

if you thought the reincarnation post was far out dont read this, its my own distorted personal view ;)

I am sure "someone"actually a lot of people come into this world with an abundance of inexplicable talent, its been seen so many times through history. in music in visual art in science. I am sure genetics have something to do with it, if your vision and hand eye coordination doesnt work, chances are that you will never draw a lot (or you might become an expressionist). however I am also sure certain people carry and recieve a lot of information with their "bio energy matrices" (souls, whatever we call it), now that we are talking reincarnation. Is time really linear and progresses from now to now? Ofcourse thats the way we understand and experience time in our confined three dimensional domain, but does it make any sense in a broader perspective? its been named the 4th dimension and its annoying to try to wrap your mind around, just like its annoying to fit a house in a 2D plane and have people living there (read flatlands). in dreams the flexibilty of time is a lot clearer perhaps because we transgress the barrier of the three dimensions and gain more acces to roam the 4th. Personally its a great place to investigate the mysteries of life. so in my mind, the whole concept of reincarnation is set on a false premise. namely the universe unfolding chronologically..tik tok tik tok. I dont think its as simple as that, ofcourse we have to stick to this concept when working with regular science, we need time as a reference for everything, but when we talk reincarnation we have already left many conventions. Lets say someone lived 200 lives. Now remove our understanding of time. Does everything happen at once? Time is more to be understood as a medium we travel through. speed affects time, we know... how about the higher dimensions and they way information travels from one dimension to another? (interesting in the context of people having skills they are not "supposed" to have early on). A very common experience of this almost everyone has is the telephone situation. People who dont often call each other, suddenly call each other at the same instant in time. I have experienced it a lot here with my flat mate, we both go to the hallway at the same time because, in the middle of the night working for instance, we both thought we heard the other one call our name, but we didnt speak at all. And so on.. quantum mechanics descibes some of these issues, photons existing several places at once and so on. Its not that far fetched, its the those principles scientists are trying to construct the quantum computer from. Oh I cant wait for FermiLAB or CERN to prove those extra dimensions, however many they will nail.

ok I am almost certifiably nuts... :D

tjabba

04-26-2005, 03:29 AM

it's all about what you learn, and what you put in. no-one comes into the world able to draw well,

Okay. But how do you then explain 'idiot-savants', people with autism or other related problems who have extreme talents in one single narrow area (but way below average in most everything else)? Talents that are obvious from a very early age? Some of them are musical geniuses who can 'record' songs in their heads from 1 listening (like Mozart was said to be able to do at 6 or so), and have perfect pitch without even practising. They just pick up an instrument and play the song.
Others are mathematical geniuses, others are able to look at a whole city block for a few seconds then draw it very faithfully without looking at it again. I saw a young boy do that very thing, on TV; every single window was there. Slightly distorted, because he didn't use a ruler or pencil or eraser, he just drew it in ink... I know for sure most pros can't do that. If any. Are you saying he just practised more than them?

Isn't it more likely that we have brains that are indeed wired slightly differently (or very differently)? How would evolution even work if all our brains are exactly the same from birth?
Your biggest argument so far against it having anything to do with genes, seems to be that this is somehow insulting to artists? But what does nature care if it insults us or not... :) probably better to look at the facts rather than what we wish to be true.

Per-Anders

04-26-2005, 04:17 AM

yes, it is important to look at the facts rather than what we wish to be true. and the facts are people make excuses for their own failings while downplaying other peoples effort by ascribing their success to some mythical "natural talent", rather than to them not pushing themselves enough, being lazy or simply not having got that far yet and those talented artists having worked bloody hard to get to where they are, to get to the point where it seems so easy when they do it.

that child you saw drawing, could they draw, or did they just have a photographic memory, and in that case was it for them just a tracing? how different was it to a childs tracing over of a photograph?

how many of your favourite artists, or artists that you view as "talented" are/were idiot savants, had photographic memories, or were even childhood prodigies?

do you think you're mentally less capable than those around you, or do you think those aroung you are less capable than yourself? how do you know you're right and not just too humble/arrogant? have you ever pushed yourself, have those around you when you're around?

then how are you going to deal with it? are you a winner, innovator, ritualist, retreater or rebel at the fruit machine of life?

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 07:11 AM

People can only draw what they see. The visual motivation for a drawing can be prompted by ones take on a physical manifestation of what they “see” with naked eye or what we “see” within a mental vision. A logical type of person may see things as they are with no thought of deviating from the physical visuals that are presented to them. They may have a photographic impression of visual data only. An artistic person can see the same visual data but may put themselves in the picture and fantasize to the point of inserting another person, an object, etc into the makeup of this visual data. Since the visual information is not available until it is drawn or built the artist feels moved to “express” this vision with some technical manner of creation. Yes some people are naturally artistically creative or “expressive” and possess this ability in one area and others with the same circumstances may not.

When this artistic person presents their visual expressions this can come naturally without any prior training. In children this expression is raw and often chaotic. As we grow older we try to communicate our ideas to others in ways that others can understand or appreciate. So we learn expression techniques that work and apply these to better formulate our expressions so that others will accept our visions. Throughout human history people have been using art to express themselves. The ones that do it better are the artist who have discovered what expressions work for whatever reason with their audience.

Artistic skill not talent determines how good one can operate as a creative person to draw a straight line when they intend to draw a straight line. With skillful precision and execution of ones craft an artist can control their presentation of creativity. This too can come naturally. But artistic technical skill alone is not enough to capture and attention of an audience.

Art schools can tech persons to become skillful as technical artist. They can even teach persons to become skillful reproductive art technicians. But it's hard to teach people to be creative. Creativity is a natural process that is born from the desire to make something new or different.

Artistic persons see things creativity and can apply their own perspectives or shapes to what they see. They can alter what they see in many ways both in a logical manner and in a creative way. A creative person can transform a field of wheat into the hairs on a hedgehogs back and capture the same logical perspective and flow from one subject to the other. There is no explanation as to the reason of transferals of visions in this manner for most creative people. They simple react to whatever the moment is and create.

What can make some creative people more successful as far as getting other people to enjoy their presentations of creative visions can be based purely on a shared acceptance of subject matter. If ones art can reach others at some level of a mutual appreciation that connects an artist with their audience then the art works.

Talent defines a special ability. Our level of imagination determines our ability for creativity. Do we judge a persons artistic talent on their ability to create scientifically accurate reproductions of what we see with the naked eye? Or do we judge artistic talent based on an artists ability to create what is not available to the naked eye and thus is only revealed to us from within their imagination?

We have cameras that can duplicate any image we see as we see it. But many more artistic visions that are inspired by pure imagination have yet to be seen by any of our eyes until an artist presents these visions to us.

We can see ones ability to present their artistic vision based on the level quality of details that we see in the finished work. Anyone can identify sloppy artwork with badly connected topics. We can also see an artist ability to use their work to draw us out and touch us personally with a piece in some emotional way.

Art can be judged based on it's level of originality and creativity.

It's better to connect “artistic” talent with creative ability not artistic technical skills. If an artist is just copying what they see without bringing out their own creative vision on a subject matter then they lack “creative” talent. Without creative talent one is not a good artist they are only a copycat. A person can learn artististic skills as they need them.

Everyone can learn to draw technically accurate images. Only people with highly active imaginations can use technical drawing processes to express these as unique creative visions.

This is why we give credit to original creators of a type of artwork.

SheepFactory

04-26-2005, 07:27 AM

Jaforreal , man...I think I speak for everyone when I say this , please try to make sense in your posts man , they are too long and incoherent. read em before you post and try to say whatever it is you are trying to say in fewer words. I am not trying to insult you or anything Just trying to make sense of what you write gives me a headache.

For example:

The visual motivation for a drawing can be prompted by ones take on a physical manifestation of what they “see” with naked eye or what we “see” within a mental vision. A logical type of person may see things as they are with no thought of deviating from the physical visuals that are presented to them

Are you saying: "logical people just draw what they see" ?

Thank you.

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 07:51 AM

To try to find some answers I did a google on "talent genes art", here some highlights.
..............................

It's quite possible that people are motivated by their genes as far as the way that they do things. Also culture and upbringing can have some effect on us too. If we come from a family that is very basic in their approach to living with a focus on only the needs of living and without seeking creative outlets like music, art, story telling etc. this could effect our creativity.

We can look at some of the earlier societies of humans. These people had to come up with creative ways to entertain themselves at the end of each day with music, art, stories, etc. They didn't have the influences of the radio, TV, and films.

I have to turn off the TV, radio etc. just to collect my thoughts. I have come up with many good ideas just taking an evening walk. My cg work keeps my mind active as I have to come up with many creative functional designs every work day. Then I can take part in discussions like this one and get my creative juices going by talking about art with other artist.

In a sense we are gathering around with others at the end of the day to talk about creative matters here on CGtalk and elsewhere in online cg communities.

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 08:06 AM

Jaforreal , man...I think I speak for everyone when I say this , please try to make sense in your posts man , they are too long and incoherent. read em before you post and try to say whatever it is you are trying to say in fewer words. I am not trying to insult you or anything Just trying to make sense of what you write gives me a headache.

For example:

The visual motivation for a drawing can be prompted by ones take on a physical manifestation of what they “see” with naked eye or what we “see” within a mental vision. A logical type of person may see things as they are with no thought of deviating from the physical visuals that are presented to them

Are you saying: "logical people just draw what they see" ?

Thank you.

I meant what I said. But your statement works too. I lead in with the visual motivation sentence to more precisely illustrate how a logical person sees things. The visual motivation quote also covered the creative types that I mentioned later on and with the rest of the context. Other than that....

It looks like you got the gist of what I was saying so the quotes worked to communicate my points. I was not applying a specific process of writing with my quotes, I was just stating my opinions. My delivery was free form.

SheepFactory

04-26-2005, 08:41 AM

It worked because thats all i managed to read before giving up , the rest of the post i didnt even touch. Clarity over freeform ;)

tjabba

04-26-2005, 08:48 AM

or did they just have a photographic memory,
"Just"? What's so "just" about it? Having more or less of such a mental capability would be a huge factor in any artists success, wouldn't it? I don't understand the belittling of such an amazing power, calling it "just" photographic, and calling it "tracing" when it's used. It's the ability to truly observe something, then to see it clearly and precisely, in color and full shading, with your mind's eye; the most basic and important of all artistic skills. Some scientists call it spatial intelligence. I believe it has been proven that this ability is usually present to a higher degree in the more accomplished artist, and lesser degree in the less accomplished (however you want to define 'accomplished'). Of course I agree it can be improved by training - what human attribute can't? But most human attributes are also controlled by genes.

how many of your favourite artists, or artists that you view as "talented" are/were idiot savants, had photographic memories, or were even childhood prodigies?
I believe most of them were, if not childhood prodigies like Picasso, at least had a touch of it - 'semi-prodigal' if you will. :) Most of them - not all. You're saying none of them had it, though, which seems a bit extreme to me.

do you think you're mentally less capable than those around you, or do you think those aroung you are less capable than yourself? In certain matters, yes to both versions of the question.

how do you know you're right and not just too humble/arrogant? have you ever pushed yourself, have those around you when you're around? Yes, I have pushed myself. For example with math. Or soccer. Or ice hockey. Or slalom. You might as well ask someone blind from birth to see. Other things come so easy to me I feel sorry for those around me who can't do it. And I've seen others pushing themselves and failing too. Sometimes pushing works, sometimes it doesn't. That Amway Pull-Yourself-Up-By-Your-Bootstraps bull sounds believable because A: we all like to believe it, and B: it's accidentally right sometimes - that person did have pre-existing talent to become a great Amway salesman. I tried for over 2 years, really thought I was onto something, but in the end failed miserably. Same thing with most others around me - it's a pyramid scheme after all. The gaussian bellcurve again - 1 or 2 couples have what it takes to "go Diamond" as they say. There's a handful of intermediates, then there's the base of the pyramid who don't get anywhere. Same thing with most other talents or skills.

then how are you going to deal with it? are you a winner, innovator, ritualist, retreater or rebel at the fruit machine of life?
Sounds like it's straight out of "7 Habits of Highly Successful People". :) A good book per se, with lots of wisdom in it, but... life just isn't as simple as the Amway library would like us to believe.

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 08:50 AM

It worked because thats all i managed to read before giving up , the rest of the post i didnt even touch. Clarity over freeform ;)

No problem. We don't have to read every post in a thread anyway.

We are artist here expressing ourselves lest we forget. Hehehe.

ashakarc

04-26-2005, 09:09 AM

Free forms have mass too. According to Newton, there must be gravity. ;)

cheers,

royalwin

04-26-2005, 10:03 AM

I'm sorry, but come on! We are all at different places in our artistic journey. We all traverse different parts of that road with different speeds. We are not carbon copies of each other but that does not logically lead to the conlusion that artistic skills are the result of some mystical tap on the head from the talent fairy! In fact, I can think of nothing that discourages more people from getting better and benefitting from study, hard work, observation, and education than their buying into the idea that it's just a talent and you've either got it or you don't. Great artists wouldn't tell you their favorite books to read on the subject if it wasn't learnable. Master and apprentice style learning would never have created the masters throughout the ages that it has. Ian McCaig wouldn't tell you that anyone can learn it if they want to if it wasn't so. Don't be discouraged! Keep trying! Enjoy the journey instead of trying to fall in love with any single image. Study related ideas like color, composition, lighting, photography, painting, sculpture, 2d, 3d, emulate, copy, look, SEE! Put your left brain to sleep and watch what you can make. Get real education if you want it. Inside I think most of us are drawn to imagery and want to create, have been that way for 50,000 years or so. More emotion, information, and mood can be conveyed in an image than all these clumsy words I'm using! I have watched so many artists, young and old, go from seemingly hopelessly amateur, to well established in the habits and patterns that will make them artists for life with just a year or two of dedicated effort that I am absolutley convinced that if you want it, well, then it shall be yours.

Faber

04-26-2005, 12:01 PM

hear hear royalwin! I like your encouraging advice.

non should be discouraged, we all carry immense potential. its up to every single one of us to understand it ourselves and unlock it with attention to one self, the world around us and the ability be in the presence and work work work and reflect on that work. I was a crappy photographer when i started. now Im a good photographer and a crappy 3D artist aspiring to become good ...takes time for most people to get there :)

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 03:36 PM

hear hear royalwin! I like your encouraging advice.

non should be discouraged, we all carry immense potential. its up to every single one of us to understand it ourselves and unlock it with attention to one self, the world around us and the ability be in the presence and work work work and reflect on that work. I was a crappy photographer when i started. now Im a good photographer and a crappy 3D artist aspiring to become good ...takes time for most people to get there :)

I checked out your website and your renders are very professional and show your skill as as a photographer. But art requires diversity and unexpected deviations from what we logically consider normal. As 3d artist often our work has to be practical. Some 3d artist just "dirty up" their scenes textures and knock out tiles and bricks in places. This can be interesting but you can only go so far with dirt.

2d hand drawn art lets you quickly create art as sketches just by using a few strokes here and there on a sketch pad. We can surprise ourselves with unexpected artistic discoveries during sketching sessions. If you are a 3d modeler you can do the same thing by just going wild cutting up a cube and extruding out shapes and letting your model take on form as your work progresses in 3d space. We can then fit these artistic discoveries back into our 3d environments as props like sculptures and accessories to add some flavor to our scenes.

I think that even artist can impair themselves creatively if they over think their creative process and hold back their creative juices with technically artistic rules. You sometimes have to just go with what you feel and let the moment guide you. You can always put things back in line later on. If you want too.

I say this because I need to do this myself. Much of my 3d design works as developed art elements that present products and services. I am trying to sneak in more creativity to spice things up.

Nehym

04-26-2005, 04:06 PM

This thread is very interesting to follow, indeed.

I like to believe that each person on the planet has potential in various discipline, may it be only one or more. But potential becomes talent only if we develop it and work hard to make something out of it. Some are predisposed to be good at anything physical, others better at logical thoughts, others at creative stuff. But then, it is only a matter or developping this potential. One can still like and try something else and actually become good at it, but maybe it will take more time (or maybe not, depending on their ''passion'' for it and thetime they put into it.)

It is all a matter of puting together several factors that can interfere with our lives and our so called talent. But talents comes from hardwork, potential comes from the genes and stuff like that. Well ,it is my opinion about it. I am rambling and probably repeating something somebody already said but oh well... Just wanted to add my little thoughts in the thread. :)

(Not sure if i used the right words in some places.. :shrug: )

cha0t1c1

04-26-2005, 04:13 PM

Ja-forreal: I completelt disagree with your thinking: an artist is a creator, recreator, reproducer. not a photocopy machine with an attitude complex.

that's why not everyone is an artist.

Logical thaught is an art. a form of art anyway. philosophers are artists too. they express their thaughts by writing.

art is the abstract of translation from thaught to reality, or influence of thaught by reality to reality. read my sig and counter argue... cheers...

Faber

04-26-2005, 08:22 PM

> JA-forreal

thanks for the kind words. the 3D part is a "little" biased towards architectual visualization, frankly I think my 3D there is boring. I havent done any of the 3D I want to do yet...hmm I am not sure how to yet, being the reason behind that, too many far fetched ideas :)

I think that even artist can impair themselves creatively if they over think their creative process and hold back their creative juices with technically artistic rules. You sometimes have to just go with what you feel and let the moment guide you. You can always put things back in line later on. If you want too.

I completely agree with you there. I try to be in the present when creating and never keep anything if it feels or rather looks "wrong".. kill your darlings (dont know whos quote that is)

I totally agree with cha0t1c1 that everybody is not an artist. I think there needs to be an urge to do it, a kind of necessity to create to understand and then perhaps express it (for me). A lot of people dont find an urge to express them selves in art for various reasons I guess.

Lilie > its an exciting discussion where this potential comes from...genes, heritage, how we consciously and subconsiously chose to interact with the universe through our given uniquely tuned senses. I think that has a lot to do with the unlocking to do.

Falcorr

04-26-2005, 08:37 PM

Does a wingless monkey learn to fly if he practises a lot? NO

Does a wingless monkey learn to fly if you yell and scream him a lot? NO

Does an artist learn to draw? YES

Are you an artist or wingless monkey? Find out by practise :sad:

*SIGH*

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 08:59 PM

Ja-forreal: I completelt disagree with your thinking: an artist is a creator, recreator, reproducer. not a photocopy machine with an attitude complex.

that's why not everyone is an artist.

Logical thaught is an art. a form of art anyway. philosophers are artists too. they express their thaughts by writing.

art is the abstract of translation from thaught to reality, or influence of thaught by reality to reality. read my sig and counter argue... cheers...

If you work as an illustrator and most of your clients want you to create images of art that are in many cases replicas of their product image then you would see things differently. If you just make art for the fun of it or create whatever you're inspired by you shouldn't have to work like an artist who is hired to reproduce someone else's concept drawings or images.

Yeah working at an artistic job doesn't make you creative.

Many of us here at CGtalk are a part of art productions in which artist reproduce the visions of other people for a living.

Often the only time that we can explore our own art is in a WIP on CGtalk or some other cg forum.

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 09:07 PM

> JA-forreal

thanks for the kind words. the 3D part is a "little" biased towards architectual visualization, frankly I think my 3D there is boring. I havent done any of the 3D I want to do yet...hmm I am not sure how to yet, being the reason behind that, too many far fetched ideas :)

.........................

I love architectural viz work. It is a very creative type of 3d art.

Same here. I have not done most of my personal cg designs. I feel that my best work is still in my concept drawings. One of my goals is to work with realtime cg to produce a few cg entertainment titles.

But for now it's 3d cg for promotions that present other computer communication tech.

I am learning new ways to present my own artwork as products so that clients can pick from what is available from one series of my body of artwork. Artist have to find ways to push their own art in a productive manner. The hard part is making your body of work adjustable enough to be acceptable for a wide range of different clients needs.

As I work this way, I find myself thinking more like a chef with a cooking pot, some water and a whole lot of stew fixings that can make up tasty stews that can suit everyone. This method is working for me with 3d so far. But I'm like the person in the background who just keeps things running because none of this work is really truly personal.

Then I guess that I'm a art developer so I like this position, hehehe. I'm during some stuff in the 3d community that will allow me to serve up the real me as fronted by yet more 3d artwork. Hehehe. Bam! As Emeril would say.

ashakarc

04-26-2005, 09:43 PM

If you work as an illustrator and most of your clients want you to create images of art that are in many cases replicas of their product image then you would see things differently. If you just make art for the fun of it or create whatever you're inspired by you shouldn't have to work like an artist who is hired to reproduce someone else's concept drawings or images.

Many of us here at CGtalk are a part of art productions in which artist reproduce the visions of other people for a living.

Often the only time that we can explore our own art is in a WIP on CGtalk or some other cg forum.

I guess this is very pessimistic point of view. Surely, some artists find it hard not to sell their soul! but that is not necessarily what we should endorse as creative professionals.

arkinet

04-26-2005, 10:08 PM

can i add some lines?... ok, I believe somebody already said this, m just lazy to follow all the replies. Like they said talent is in born, while skills are learned. Some folks are purely natural in music, or math... i know somebody who is 8 yrs old & blind, but can run his fingers thru those keys & produce really sweet music... I started drawing even before I learn how to write, like most kids, but discovered I am way better than most of my grade schl classmates. O well, "you're talented", they said. Since then I started from crayons, to water color to oil. But it stops when I proceeded to architecture, got my license & became an architect, and needless to say, my art is becoming more on the side of beeing technical. My talent in drawing makes designing, graphics & visual tech a piece of cake while my classmates sweat it out. Still, my 1st love is sketching & painting. But when I get back to it, I kinda have a hard time with muscle tones, anatomy prper lighting, etc. Sure I can sketch a cool action figure, or landscape whatever, but refining it takes a lot of sweat than I did before. One famous artist I know(well, he's famous to me) told me once that its all about practice. Sure you have a talent, but techniques & style are developed by practice, just like anything, it will get rusted if not put into action. Why do you think Linda draw such a beautiful picture? Just like she said, discipline... practice. I can say there are people out there who are a lot better but dont have the juice to push it. In conclusion I'd say, drawing can be learned as a skill, but if you have a talent to go with it, hakuna matata baby... quantum physics is a breeze if you have Einstein's brain.

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 10:40 PM

I guess this is very pessimistic point of view. Surely, some artists find it hard not to sell their soul! but that is not necessarily what we should endorse as creative professionals.

This is a very positive view to working as an artistic professional. I mean if I am commissioned to model and render a quaint cafe table scene with a glass of wine for some wine brand promotion I would treat that work like a job and do my best to creatively complete that job. No matter how beautiful the work turns out I wouldn't think about the piece much after that other using it in my portfolio to attract other clients. I may use it as a screen saver later on. That's about it.

I wouldn't frame this work and carry it around in my wallet.

With personal art you don't even have to place a price value on it. You do it for love.

But if you don't love a personal art piece all that much and someone offers you a good figure for it you may be willing to part with it.

JA-forreal

04-26-2005, 10:53 PM

...... I kinda have a hard time with muscle tones, anatomy prper ....

I have a hard time with this also. I often rush through these parts of the body when I sketch.

I practice with Loomis methods and Willy Pogany's methods of sketching and drawing as my guides. Check out "The Art of Drawing" by Willy Pogany. This book is always near my desk.

tjabba

04-27-2005, 02:58 AM

In fact, I can think of nothing that discourages more people from getting better and benefitting from study, hard work, observation, and education than their buying into the idea that it's just a talent and you've either got it or you don't.

who said it's just talent? If you read my first post here, I said that talent and practise (or motivation, basically same thing) are multipliers of each other. If one is zero it doesn't matter how much you have of the other. If one is slightly higher than zero, then a HUGE amount of the other can actually get you somewhere.
I'm really getting tired of people over-simplifying this and saying it's got nothing to do with genetics. Every human attribute has something to do with genetics. This isn't just my opinion, we're talking independently verifiable phenomena here.

Some people are quitters, some are not. If someone's a quitter, it doesn't matter if you tell him "You can do it, you can do it!" a thousand times. He'll eventually quit anyway. If someone's a motivated SOB, it doesn't matter even if you misquote me and tell him he can never make it because it's all in his genes. He'll push through every obstacle, all on his own if he has to.

royalwin

04-27-2005, 03:44 AM

I don't think there can be any doubt that genetics are an important, and the way science is going these days, an ever increasingly important part of why we are the way we are. Ok, granted. In talking about what discourages artists who are struggling I was not attempting to quote you at all, much less misquote you, those were my own words based on my own experiences. Everyone who pursues artistic endeavors is going to run smack into dissapointment. Even the 8 year old Mozart prodigies in drawing didn't draw so great the first time they held crayon, period. It grew in them. What I'm talking about is how we influence ourselves and others and effect the way they deal with that dissapointment when a work of art or drawing fails. If someone says, "Well, I guess you weren't born with it." they are stopping their progression too early. If they believe that someone can reach their greatest inner potential through effort and study then they might continue to work on something that will bring them a life of fulfillment.
Not everyone's ultimate potential is the same. I'll never be able to ride a bike enough to ride like Lance Armstrong. However, if I wanted to I could probably ride better than 90% of the people through nothing more than effort. You can't teach serendipity, perhaps even true inspiration and innovation, but luck favors the prepared, right? To quote an art professor of mine, there are a lot of talented artists working as Starbucks Baristas. I think that we have a strong cultural idea that art is born in in the western world, and that is why we suffer compared to many other cultures in the arts. Our secondary school system is abysmal in art education, many would-be artists are discouraged from pursuing something that "isn't a real job", and a big part of that I believe we can attribute to the notion of the "Talent Fairy".
In a response to another post, I agree whole heartedly that the majority of work a professional artist is going to do is very specific. Designed to solve particular problems. It is practical, a communication skill, really. Only a very small percentage of the prodigious amounts of artwork created is for nothing more than personal fulfillment. It may serve that purpose well, but to the rest of the world most of the latter stuff is kind of, well, crap. Too many fine artists hide behind this 20th century plus notion that fine art is not subject to criticism and put out pure junk, and snobbishly reject any who would call it what it is. In fact, many of those artists are now art instructors who don't know what they're doing. All too often, art students who really want to learn find themselves migrating over to the graphic design or commercial art departments where the people who can actually draw are - so they can learn something!
Wow! I've gone on WAY too long here. Thanks for reading - fun topic!

cha0t1c1

04-27-2005, 04:29 AM

Ja-forreal: Again, I disagree. Plus, being articulate or vague are completely different expressive styles. try to be the first type...

some technical designers are just that: photographers with a narrow lense.
a visual artist( a true visual artist) can produce/reproduce without difficulty, and in any medium, any thaught, image or object. when in mood.

However, some 3d designers, engineers, or technicians can only do so much on their own. That's why you have such a narrow view. I don't think you're capable of understanding it. just asking a trumpet player how Mozart creates his pieces...

JA-forreal

04-27-2005, 06:30 AM

Ja-forreal: Again, I disagree. Plus, being articulate and vague are completely different types of writing capability. try to be the first type...

some technical designers are just that: photographers with a narrow lense.
a visual artist( a true visual artist) can produce/reproduce without difficulty, and in any medium, any thaught, image or object. when in mood.

However, some 3d designers, engineers, or technicians can only do so much on their own. That's why you have such a narrow view. I don't think you're capable of understanding it. just asking a trumpet player how Mozart creates his pieces...

In this forum our topics involve the use of the English language. I wasn't aware that our grammar is being monitored. If I were preparing an article on the topic of this thread to support my theories on art I would prepare my statements accordingly. This is a web discussion forum and I treat it as such. I don't accept everything that I glean from our discussions here as fact. We are having casual conversations here. At least I am.

Are you a technical person such as a designer, developer, IT professional, an engineer or any kind of a technician? You make judgments in a way that leads us to believe that you have some knowledge of these fields.

I'm a web developer and 3d designer. I can fit art into my projects pretty well. My 3d software lets me prepare one environment that I can use for all of my images to support my other web content indefinitely. And I can be very flexible and productively creative in my choice of subject matter without much of a art development hassle while I manage demands of the tech on the website.

Stahlberg

04-27-2005, 06:37 AM

Our secondary school system is abysmal in art education

This sadly is very true, all over the world.

igorstshirts

04-27-2005, 06:58 AM

I'm thinking genetics DO have a little to do with it. At least the interest part of it. The three year old that is facinated by the way lifesavor candies are spilled on the table and the colors present.

Imagination is also hard to teach... Not saying that it can't be honed but... Some people are a little more imaginative than others and therefore have a solid thing to build upon.

Lastly,
My dad used to let me pick what movies we would see when I was young because he liked the same style of flicks as me. Him being a draftsman, you can only imagine the high fives he was giving me after I took him to see Tron in the early eighties.

Something about the interest...

soriah

04-27-2005, 07:23 AM

I don't think someone is born with being able to draw well but what results in how they look at things and then hand eye co-ordination. People seem to think this is how they are born with it but I think it is how they use their ability to see shapes and textures lines and dimentions as well as shaddows and balance. I was an ok drawer at shcool I could copy disney characters to the letter and blow them up to any size when the original picture was quite small some people said that I was a good drawer but I tend to think I had the ability to see and copy the lines.

I became a better painter and designer after i did a course in floristry they teached the student not only colour combintions but to look at the shape of a real thing a rose is round but an iris is pointy (before it blooms) pine is like a triangle and so forth and they taught us to sketch in these shapes and to use the basic shapes to acheive the design
they also teache us about depth and to look at how things grow in real life. once I applied this to my drawings I noticed a significant improvement

I was also given the comment that my pictures are well balance and that I had this natral ability I still tend to think it is because a person 's perception is more open to looking at things in a different way and then seeing the beauty of it and copying it to paper - and again - practice makes perfect

cha0t1c1

04-27-2005, 03:54 PM

Ja-forreal: I apologize if my language was strong. It might be related to the lateness of time I wrote the response in.

As for your comment on technicians...well...I am both, actually I am many(I have many hobbies :D ). but what I was arguing is your cynical point of view at talent. You say practice generates talent, or that's what I concluded. I say: On the contrary, talent has to exist, practice only nourishes it.

cheers

JA-forreal

04-27-2005, 04:23 PM

....... I think that we have a strong cultural idea that art is born in in the western world, and that is why we suffer compared to many other cultures in the arts. Our secondary school system is abysmal in art education, many would-be artists are discouraged from pursuing something that "isn't a real job", and a big part of that I believe we can attribute to the notion of the "Talent Fairy".
.............................

But life can be art if we let our creative side shine through in everything we do daily. Not everyone in the western world sees art as something that has to be delivered to them from outside of their own life and culture.

Do we let magazines and TV shows on decoration and clothing styles determine our house decoration or clothing styles? Or do we only see other persons fashion ideas as opinions or tips and come up with our own style? Does our style work and other people comment on how good we look? Clothing style is just one determining factor of personal creativity.

Are we into crafts or the arts and utilize our work in our own lifestyles? Is everything we own retail oriented? Or do we have some of our own hand crafted works in our collections of possessions.

Think about the factors that brought us to use computers creatively. Was our desire based on other preceding artistic values that we practiced in our lifestyles?

I think that some people go to college to learn how to be artistically cultured in the west. If you live in an community in which art and self expression are a big part of daily life then art will come naturally to you. And all you will need to learn form art school is about other cultural art and artistic skills or techniques. You will already have your own definitions of art from your own culture. Or you can just pick up some books or get a apprenticeship with a craft person. I like to live and learn, it's more fun and you get experience as you gain new skills and employ them in life.

JA-forreal

04-27-2005, 04:49 PM

As for your comment on technicians...well...I am both, actually I am many(I have many hobbies :D ). but what I was arguing is your cynical point of view at talent. You say practice generates talent, or that's what I concluded. I say: On the contrary, talent has to exist, practice only nourishes it.

cheers

I said that talent comes naturally and skill comes from practice. Talent is a special ability in one area based on a persons application of what they do. We can all learn about the same things but we apply what we learn differently based on our level of talent. For artist, talent involves creativity. If you are powerful and effective in your display of artistic creativity then your talent in this area will show.

You can go to the best schools that money can buy but you can't buy talent. You may be able to inherit talent. But to succeed as an artist you will need talent.

Have you ever thought about a great actors acting ability and compared them to their famous offspring? We can see that talent can be genetic in some cases but this is not always true.

We have to find our own niche for talent in the arts. And we can only do this by using the arts productively through some outlet of public communication or self expression. Graphic design can offer creative persons many opportunities to express themselves productively.

We are here on CGtalk so we can assume that most of us are computer artist or have interest in computer art. This is a good place to start. No one will make fun of you as you show off your artistic attempts.

Just have some fun with your art and see where it takes you.

MrGrinch

04-28-2005, 01:23 AM

The idea that people are born with an ability to draw is quite naive, but not entirely untrue, it's just a more complex idea than that. People are born with things such as keen observational skills, an appreciation for aesthetics, delicate and precise hand movements, the desire to create, the patience to sit and be still for long periods of time...sometimes these traits come together to give a person the desire and aptituted to draw, or not. What is the deciding factor is a person's choice to draw and their continuing diligence in practicing it. If a person has the desire to create art they will eventually become good at it by simple practice, if you enjoy what you do you will continue to do it and giving up because you're not very good will never cross your mind.
The traits I mentioned above do come with genetics, my grandfather and father both had an aptitude for drawing, but my father never became very good at sketching because he rarely practiced and instead, because of his more anylitical mind, chose to pursue architectural visulisations instead. It's less about whether someone is good at drawing and more about whether they want to be good at drawing. Certain 'natural' skills can give you a step up but these things can be learned with time and practice anyway.
I'm rather tired of people using the "talent fairy" excuse to explain away people's drawing ability, they ignore the huge amounts of time and effort that went into developing that talent.

arkinet

04-28-2005, 11:26 PM

lets just accept the fact that some are far better than others, thats why they say "he/she is talented", genes or whatever, its a trait that make each individual unique.

Shonner

04-29-2005, 04:57 AM

People aren't born to do anything great. They just do things great that they're interested in. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing great, etc.

I don't consider myself an artist. A true artist has a unique style of their own. But I do have somewhat of an interest in art drawing and sculpture. I'm not interested in how music is made/composed. So of course I would be lousy in making my own music without bothering to learn chords and timing and such. I'm content with enjoying music that I listen to.

I listen to music while I model stuff in 3D for relaxation.

Blithe

04-29-2005, 06:26 AM

Well, I'd say that it is something innate. I know people that draw all the time and try really hard to draw well, taking classes etc., but they just cannot seem to get it. Me, I've never taken any sort of class nor have I ever had any training, it just comes naturally. I've been drawing since I was a small child, progressively getting better, learning new techniques and discovering new methods and mediums in addition to changing my style until it is what it is now. Although, it is defiently not a static style, it still changes periodically. I do think that practice has something to do with it, but I think that a majority of it is indeed natural talent, imagination, and above all things drive. Some people say you can do anything if you will it, and in regards to art, that is true to some extent. If, for example, I approach a piece with a negative rushed mindset, the final product will reflect that, if I don't really want to do the piece, the piece will reflect that, if I really want to do it then the final will reflect that. I think what you put into a piece is a major part of what you get out and your mind determines what you put it, right down to your skills I'd even say.

~Blithe

JA-forreal

04-29-2005, 07:07 PM

I didn't get into artistic endeavors by being motivated to create in an art class either. I'm the kind of person who explores the world around me. I look at collections of objects, investigate places and periods of history, analyze people, I study the characteristics of people, I observe anything that I see and take mental notes, then put this all together in a visual of some kind later on. I like my art to end up as a 3d render because the 3d software process allows me to build up lifelike art object collections based on my methods of gathering and processing data. Then later a final art piece is born.

Some people need a guide to prepare their artistic "recipes" I just gather all of my thoughts and some physical references like books, videos, notes, etc and start cooking up art. Or I can just sit back and pull out a sketchpad and get busy. If I want to examine and prepare something like a lighting"formula" for a piece that I'm working on, I study photographs or take photographs that match my ideas and go from there. I didn't need to take a class to learn to think like this, I think like this naturally.

Maybe some people need something like artistic dancing lessons to "feel" their artistic rhythm in order to begin pumping out their art. To me that would be at bit much more than I need to prepare my art concepts. If I read a book on art it is usually based on some artistic technique for a particular art process like a drawing style or method of brush strokes like Sumi-e.

Some of my artistic ideas are wild. In one concept I used agricultural overtones and lifestyles as references for an urban setting. All of the places in this setting are connected to common visual references that are totally urban. While the urban spirit is most dominate it is driven by rural ideals. That's all that I can say about that, hehehe.

I don't think that you can learn ideas like this, you have to make them up as you live and art just happens. There is no logic to this process but you can use your artistic productions logically to communicate to people in endless ways.

I like to see others approach their art more naturally too. To me the essence of art is rooted at the artist heart felt spontaneous artistic expressions that are driven by their experiences. I like to see how people lay out their personalities through art. This type of art is not artificial or driven by teachers or others opinions. This type of art is raw, untamed and natural. When it's done right it grabs you.

Try to illustrate your art by writing about the details of your art ideas on paper first. Then start your drawing based on this information. It's easier to put down your artistic ideas in a journal and draw them up later when you have the time. You can even plan out color use, textures, lighting style and directions, etc. then later figure out what techniques to use to visualize the ideas as art. This process helps me.

jmBoekestein

04-29-2005, 09:05 PM

page 7, heh?

Ok, I'll say this:

OK, I hear you, that's definitely a way a good way to look at it. Hmm...interesting

:wavey:

unitstudio

05-03-2005, 08:48 AM

I haven't read all the comments but I'll post my take on this:

There's no natural ability or genetic predisposition to draw as such, rather a combination of a natural aptitudes such as an acute spatial awareness, a comprehension of symmetry and form, and often a certain nuanced sensitivity that in combination, results in an ability to draw when applied to this task. Different artists have these in differing degrees and certainly through practice these can be fine-tuned...

I think also - and this hasn't been touched upon - is that it isn't purely about natural aptitude of the artist (the spatial awarenes etc) but a truly good artist is in-tune with the 'emtional triggers' that have an impact on other people who view the work. They have certain sensitivity to the emotional states of others; a certain empathy. The works of truly great artists have emotional impact upon us..

Concerning whether someone is an artist or not - the question entirely concerns semantics based upon broadly agreed definitions - There are many who would not, for instance consider Jackson Pollock an artist, based on the fact that his work isn't 'realistic'. This passes over into the whole other realm of 'what is art' which is a detailed topic in itself. One one level, any human endeavour be it creative or destructive can be considered 'artistic' in possibly the purest definition freed of the burden of morality. There is no innate definition of art or artist built into the fabric of the universe, nor is there an innate minimum standard for what is art or artistic. But the generally and broadly accepted norms for an artist is someone who has the abilities or predispositions i outlined in my first paragraph to a high level. We're all aritsts - its just that there is a broadly culturally determined and societally accepted sliding scale of what is art....I hope that makes sense.

And If you hadn't worked it out from this post I'm utterly non-religious and therefore rule out the god(or gods)-given ability entirely. There is no art without the perception of the viewer. What the viewer perceives to be art, is art for that person (this is not to say it's a post-modernist view where everyone's truth has equal merit, rather it is based upon culturally and socially developed standards of what defines art for the time and on how well the artist triggers an emotional response in the viewer).

The universe however, is eternally indifferent to the subject.

my 2 cents.
grant

jmBoekestein

05-03-2005, 09:02 AM

Well unitstudio.

Your theory seems to hold some truth with science. In the following simple fact.

If you are familiar with the Myers-Briggs test Myers-Briggs (http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp) and are also familiar with the character "class" of ENFP. You'll allready know my point. This type of person seems to be overly represented in the entertainment industry, for exactly those reasons. Good with exact sciences, which is weird to some people, they are intuitive about other peoples feelings and connect a bit sooner. Extraverted would account for keepin practising on emotive drama in paintings, and developping some appeal in them. But where it comes from god may know, lol.

Desert-of-Seth

05-04-2005, 04:31 PM

Lack of talent really sucks! I consider myself lacking of natural talent,for i could start drawing at a very LATE age of 13,with my art teacher's encouragement ^^;

But,lacking of talent does not mean you cannot draw professionally.For example,though i'm not a kick-ass artist yet,i believe i made a great improvement.

and,i also saw people who has talent,but does not improve -_-

I think it's "love for art" which really counts :)

CCDrkNrgy

05-06-2005, 09:26 PM

I really don't know why, but at the same time, the concept of talent is subjective. I've been drawing since I was 5, and people say I'm talented. On the other hand, when I look at my finished product I really really hate it. It depends on who you're talking to, really. Some say it's genetic. Others say it's acquired. I'm not really sure. I'm the only artist in my family. None of my parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. have the creative urge that I do. None of them have a NEED to create, particularly draw, something as I have always had. It could be a combination of nature and nurture... environment and gentics.

Frankly, I'm not really sure. lol

Desert-of-Seth

05-07-2005, 07:51 AM

I really don't know why, but at the same time, the concept of talent is subjective. I've been drawing since I was 5, and people say I'm talented. On the other hand, when I look at my finished product I really really hate it. It depends on who you're talking to, really. Some say it's genetic. Others say it's acquired. I'm not really sure. I'm the only artist in my family. None of my parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. have the creative urge that I do. None of them have a NEED to create, particularly draw, something as I have always had. It could be a combination of nature and nurture... environment and gentics.

Frankly, I'm not really sure. lol

That's a good point! :)

and,i feel for you,being the only creative person in the family ^^;

Kid-Mesh

05-07-2005, 06:01 PM

Case and point, I have four children :) and they all want to do what daddy does. So one day were at the kitchen table with comic books and such. And personally I'm watching to see who actually had the "gift" if you will passed down to them. Well right off the back I counted out my oldest daughter, and my two sons. My youngest daughter had it, I mean you could see that the talent was there and just needed to be nurtured.

But here is where it gets weird, my youngest son....god, his stuff was just horrific, and being the realist that I am I said and I quote "...son, you just don't have it. We will find out what your skill is soon enough. Don't worry about it" and we all laughed him off.

Well, unknown to me it pissed the bugger off and he began to draw even more. At first I thought, damn what a ass I have been because he wants my approval but I choose not to address it and just watched. Then about two months later I walked by the fridge one night and saw a pic with his name on it and my jaw just about hit the floor. I talked with him the next day about it because I was sure that he had traced it....sure enough he had drew all by himself.

So now I'm feeling stupid because something was happening here that I didn't catch initially. So I took him under my wing and begin to teach him the simple and neccessary foundation of viewing images as shapes, seeing the contours etc. Teaching him about volume and how to actually "see" what an object truly is. I set him up too, I taught him how to draw on big paper and provided him with correct materials from paper to drawing supplies.

It is just simply amazing when you can positively influence a 9 yr old child with proper techniques and see the fruits of it after three years, my son is now 12 years old. Todate has now won several local competitions and is considered on of the top artist in his school....I know that very soon he will eclipse even dear old dad :D

But in closing let me clear this up, I did address being an ass to him a few years later ( Great dad I am lol). I said..."Trevor, when I told you a long time ago that you didn't have the gift how did that make your feel?" ....what he said blew my mind. "Dad, I was sad because you didn't even believe me but for some reason I just knew I could draw and I don't know why?"

My oldest son tries his hardest to draw, and now me and the youngest boy are trying to "teach" him...key word their is teach....it really isnt working out to well but he is still trying lol. What he got from dear old dad and and my other daughter has it too is the ability to undertand complex math as if it were a second language.

Genetics Baby, Genetics...some people are just born with the answers the problem is do you understand the question?

CCDrkNrgy

05-07-2005, 07:20 PM

Case and point, I have four children :) and they all want to do what daddy does. So one day were at the kitchen table with comic books and such. And personally I'm watching to see who actually had the "gift" if you will passed down to them. Well right off the back I counted out my oldest daughter, and my two sons. My youngest daughter had it, I mean you could see that the talent was there and just needed to be nurtured.

But here is where it gets weird, my youngest son....god, his stuff was just horrific, and being the realist that I am I said and I quote "...son, you just don't have it. We will find out what your skill is soon enough. Don't worry about it" and we all laughed him off.

Well, unknown to me it pissed the bugger off and he began to draw even more. At first I thought, damn what a ass I have been because he wants my approval but I choose not to address it and just watched. Then about two months later I walked by the fridge one night and saw a pic with his name on it and my jaw just about hit the floor. I talked with him the next day about it because I was sure that he had traced it....sure enough he had drew all by himself.

So now I'm feeling stupid because something was happening here that I didn't catch initially. So I took him under my wing and begin to teach him the simple and neccessary foundation of viewing images as shapes, seeing the contours etc. Teaching him about volume and how to actually "see" what an object truly is. I set him up too, I taught him how to draw on big paper and provided him with correct materials from paper to drawing supplies.

It is just simply amazing when you can positively influence a 9 yr old child with proper techniques and see the fruits of it after three years, my son is now 12 years old. Todate has now won several local competitions and is considered on of the top artist in his school....I know that very soon he will eclipse even dear old dad :D

But in closing let me clear this up, I did address being an ass to him a few years later ( Great dad I am lol). I said..."Trevor, when I told you a long time ago that you didn't have the gift how did that make your feel?" ....what he said blew my mind. "Dad, I was sad because you didn't even believe me but for some reason I just knew I could draw and I don't know why?"

My oldest son tries his hardest to draw, and now me and the youngest boy are trying to "teach" him...key word their is teach....it really isnt working out to well but he is still trying lol. What he got from dear old dad and and my other daughter has it too is the ability to undertand complex math as if it were a second language.

Genetics Baby, Genetics...some people are just born with the answers the problem is do you understand the question?

Whatever happened to your youngest daughter?! Has her talent been nurtured, too?

CCDrkNrgy

05-07-2005, 07:21 PM

That's a good point! :)

and,i feel for you,being the only creative person in the family ^^;

Thank you! :D

Tell me about it. The only creativity that was nurtured in me was the cooking. My mom would tell me what she was doing step by step, whenever I was in the kitchen. For all other aspects, I was entirely on my own.

Kid-Mesh

05-08-2005, 04:28 AM

Whatever happened to your youngest daughter?! Has her talent been nurtured, too?

Well again genetics lol....I'm 6ft 7in and played basketball from highschool through to college. So when she discovered basketball we were pleasantly suprised to see her exceptionally good at it. She played on the boys ball team from 4th grade to 6th grade. Currently she is in the 8th grade and is the B-Ball captain for the girls team. Unfortuneatly she hasnt really picked up the pencil as much as I would like but Im not one to force anything on any one. I played small forward in college but I understand the two position well enough to try and give her some pointers :).

I think the only thing they got from the wife though was how to snake money out of my wallet :twisted:

Squibbit

05-08-2005, 08:23 AM

Why is it that some people just seem to be 'born' with it? Where did it come from? At what point in the evolutionary cycle was drawing seen as useful? Are todays artists descended from the cavemen that drew over the cave walls? I guess drawing was important in ancient times for communication before writing was invented (actually writing evolved from pictographic symbols). I've researched back into my family tree and I think only one person was good at drawing.

yea , cars have been around for 100 a bit over years and still we got seemingly
natural born drivers like say Michael Schumacher , whose pretty much unbeatable
in the Formula 1's. So evolution seems to have realized pretty fast there's much
need for driving skills, but still hasn't got a clue to why people shouldn't have
bad eyesight and allergies and stuff.

weird, huh?

Desert-of-Seth

05-08-2005, 08:36 AM

Thank you! :D

Tell me about it. The only creativity that was nurtured in me was the cooking. My mom would tell me what she was doing step by step, whenever I was in the kitchen. For all other aspects, I was entirely on my own.

Hell yes...And my mom has talent against music ^^; she sings very well,and her brother can "make" his own guitars and amplifiers...My father has no talent at all oO;;

It's very hard to draw for us,i think :( talented people also gain their skills by studying too,but they have an eye for composition :(

Stahlberg

05-08-2005, 01:57 PM

So evolution seems to have realized pretty fast there's much
need for driving skills, but still hasn't got a clue to why people shouldn't have
bad eyesight and allergies and stuff.

Hehe, doesn't work like that... in fact even 10,000 years is way too short for evolution to create a new gene and spread it through our species. And even if we'd been driving for say 50,000 years - think about it: F1 drivers die younger than average, don't they? So, on average, less of their genes survive, not more... :) Just one example of how evolution has stopped working on the human race.

Some of us drive well, for this reason only: the combination of genes that does that, has always been there. Perhaps a combination of loving the thrill of competition and danger, of fast reflexes, cool nerves, and a sense of the 3d space around them. They are the guys who would have been better hunters and fighters back in the stone age.

CCDrkNrgy

05-08-2005, 07:53 PM

yea , cars have been around for 100 a bit over years and still we got seemingly
natural born drivers like say Michael Schumacher , whose pretty much unbeatable
in the Formula 1's. So evolution seems to have realized pretty fast there's much
need for driving skills, but still hasn't got a clue to why people shouldn't have
bad eyesight and allergies and stuff.

weird, huh?

I HATE Michael Schumacher! Ruebens Barachello is so much better! lol

CCDrkNrgy

05-08-2005, 07:55 PM

Hell yes...And my mom has talent against music ^^; she sings very well,and her brother can "make" his own guitars and amplifiers...My father has no talent at all oO;;

It's very hard to draw for us,i think :( talented people also gain their skills by studying too,but they have an eye for composition :(

I never really studied drawing. The art class in HS was a joke, and the ONE painting class I took wasn't anything to write home about either. My work is basically what I taught myself. My family didn't believe in a career in art, so it was always something I did when I was by myself or needed to mentally get away from my family for a while.

Squibbit

05-08-2005, 11:50 PM

I HATE Michael Schumacher! Ruebens Barachello is so much better! lol

rofl :thumbsup:

Hehe, doesn't work like that... in fact even 10,000 years is way too short for evolution to create a new gene and spread it through our species. And even if we'd been driving for say 50,000 years - think about it: F1 drivers die younger than average, don't they? So, on average, less of their genes survive, not more... :) Just one example of how evolution has stopped working on the human race.

Some of us drive well, for this reason only: the combination of genes that does that, has always been there. Perhaps a combination of loving the thrill of competition and danger, of fast reflexes, cool nerves, and a sense of the 3d space around them. They are the guys who would have been better hunters and fighters back in the stone age.

dude, don't i know that. I think the whole evolution theory is mostly humbug.
At least it rules out god cause no god would have thought of anything as stupid
as that. Nothing wrong with progress, but it's been like thousands of years and
people are still fighting so where's the progress in that ? Even evolution should
have realized by now it's not what people need. Then again maybe evolution is
warlike. That would leave me out of evolution cause i don't believe in wars.
I'm sorry , I'd just like to think that if there would be evolution it would be
about progress but it don't look like that. What's those news about them scientist
having figured out there's genes that cause fatness n stuff? So we're like built
to fail and go bad? Or has somebody tampered with genes ? Who's that?
Evolution ? Evilness? Smurfs? I got a theory about people with bad eyesight,
I'm calling a copyright on this cause it's so good, hehe: So many people didn't
like it that others looked so much better than the rest. So evolution goes about
fixing this but hits a dilemma: people are of so varied tastes and life must be
versatile so it's such a big job to make everyone change to all sorts of different
good-looking people so it just goes about it the quick, easy way and makes
some people have worse eyesight. Now , since the people with worse eyesight
can't see all the details and the blurred faces look more neutral, faces in general
start to look not that bad. Then humans of course think there's something wrong
cause they cant see the numbers on approaching buses before it's too late
and they go about inventing eyeglasses to make things better. And now
then everything is of course worse than before, cause not only there's ugly
people, there's ugly people with glasses too. Hmm. this theory might not be as
waterproof as a net.

Stahlberg

05-09-2005, 04:17 AM

So we're like built
to fail and go bad? Or has somebody tampered with genes ? Who's that?
Evolution ? Evilness? Smurfs?

Overall your post sounds like you're bored and kidding, but I'm bored too so I'll answer:
Evolution works ONLY because there's random mutation. The more complex the organism, the more likely the mutation will be a negative one (not helping survival). This is bad for the individual, but necessary for the survival of any species. Many of these mutations only cause harm after we've had a family, so they matter not at all to the fitness of our species. That, plus the fact that we're living much longer than we were originally designed to, is the reason we have so many genetic degenerative disorders and crap.

About being war-like, if you go back in time and try to surgically remove what makes us like that, you'd you'd get a species of quiet, friendly, polite farmers with no motivation to create art or trade or anything else, except provide for basic necessities. They'd either stay like that for eternity, or just quietly disappear.

greynite1

05-09-2005, 05:06 AM

funny how this started about art now were talking about evolution but its all fun so yeah :)

Well my idea is that it is about progress. Evolution is a process not a person or being. Its a process that we implement automatically by reproducing and existing and doing what we do. So in effect its us who are the ones who are not weeding out the genetic deadwood. Lets not forget that hostility and war and violence are something that has existed since the first cave man clubbed his neighbor. Its an effect of Survival of the fittest its not about what might be best for mankind its about whatever set of genes or heritage is capable of overpowering the other to TAKE its place. now it can work that way or the set of genes can outsmart the more hostile ones to continue to survive in the mix. As Steven was saying this takes a very very very long time to process out genes which do bad things. In the wild those genes which give there hosts problems or maladys usually do not survive thus the genes with the problems never survive to inflict later generations unless the mutation happens again. The thing is your expecting way too much out of evolution it doesn't happen over night and right now the effects of evolution are kinda being slowed down because in our society we believe nobody should die or have to suffer. Now on paper thats a great idea but what it has the net effect of doing is giving possible damaging genes to the gene pool a clear re entry where in the wild they would die and never be a problem.

Should have added that in theory our current social thoughts could ALSO have the effect of letting genes which we NEED to survive we just don't know it yet. Those genes might do nothing for us for another ten thousand years when a great genetic plague comes about to wipe us out but those with the genes needed will survive to carry on the species. Kinda cool huh :) So it can work for the positive and the negative.

So in a sense we are still in the middle of the process of evolution its just that you and I are but a tiny mote of a flash in the entire process which is human existence. :buttrock: we are all part of the process.

Thats

MrGrinch

05-09-2005, 05:18 AM

On evolution; survival of the fittest no longer exists in human-kind. We're protecting the weak and stupid (to be incredibly un P.C.) and therefore not allowing those genes that cause disease and deformity to be weeded out. Evolution is not nice, nature is in fact very cruel and those without the best health and skills are eventually killed off in the wild. By attempting to help those with genetic disabilities (bad eyesight, bone disorders, mental disability etc) live a long life and have children, we are effectively weakening the overall human race.
For example, by taking the warning labels off certain items the human race could be halved overnight. Anyone heard of the one on hairdryers saying "do not use in shower"? *shakes head in despair*

ashakarc

05-09-2005, 05:28 AM

About being war-like, if you go back in time and try to surgically remove what makes us like that, you'd you'd get a species of quiet, friendly, polite farmers with no motivation to create art or trade or anything else, except provide for basic necessities. They'd either stay like that for eternity, or just quietly disappear.
This is an interesting assumption, but I realy don't get it. Remove what? The killer instinct? or power acquisition?
As individuals, art might not been a basic necessity, but as societies, it is. No matter how primitive or ancient human societies are, they always demonstrated the capacity to make 'art'. Prehistoric settlements showed an incredible level of craftsmanship in making tools, and jewlleries, painted caves, etc.. They were peaceful groups of people who struggled more with nature than against their own species.
-------------------------------------
MrGrinch: Another misinterpretation of Nietzsche. Tragically, the Nazis thought so too.
p.s. not meant to accuse you.

Squibbit

05-09-2005, 05:30 AM

Overall your post sounds like you're bored and kidding

no i was like coaxing you to write more, but i wasn't sure if you would when
i was myself and not overly polite, but u did , so :thumbsup:

don't go away now , i'll continue this on a better time :)

greynite1

05-09-2005, 06:50 AM

Just to illustrate a point a bit better we don't know that for certain as I said in my earlier post how do we know were letting ONLY the weak strains live. For instance Stephen hawking a Genius who had a brutal genetic malady. By natures laws he would have been killed off indeed no doubt but then we would be deprived of his genius as a species. I would assume the trick is to maintain a balance of the genetics which allow art and intelligence and critical thinking as well as those with the best physical attributes available. From my own musings I believe that this allowance from total survival of the fittest we allow our species to develop in ways other species don't. This could be that thar frontal lobe workin on a long term schedule we aren't aware of. :)

Stahlberg

05-09-2005, 07:16 AM

The killer instinct? or power acquisition?

IMO there's no instinct in humans to kill per se. It's the instinct of aggression, of attack, of letting anger take over and do it to your enemy before he does it to you. In short, the instinct to compete, and to win, or to die trying. IMO it's one of the noblest qualities of mankind... in fact of all life. Never mind just us turning into meek farmers... without the 'killer instinct' there would be no life on earth at all.

edit:
And about evolution having stopped working for us, I agree. We've stepped outside of Nature, no longer its slaves. Soon we will have turned the tables completely, making Nature our slave. In just a few more years we'll be able to clean up our own DNA, much faster and more efficiently than Nature ever could. There are of course dangers here, but the point is we shouldn't worry about evolution not working anymore. We have much bigger things to worry about. :)

MrGrinch

05-09-2005, 07:45 AM

I worry about that Stahlberg, about us soon being able to tamper with our own dna and as you say 'clean it up'. I'm not sure we should be arrogant enough to assume we know better than nature, after all, nature's been here longer, and will be here after we're gone.

greynite1: If nature's survival of the fittest was still working effectively on the human race, people like Stephen Hawking would likely not survive past childhood. Nature works on a species scale, not on individuals, and so while we may miss out on genetic flukes such as this, the species benifits overall.

I really dont think that nature cares about our individual pursuits such as science and art because nature itself is both science and art, it's integrated so deeply with what we are. The desire to discover and create will always be a part of humans, but nature's primary directive is to make sure we survive as a species long enough to develop these skills.

greynite1

05-09-2005, 08:21 AM

I agree I worry about the DNA tampering as well. Who knows what kind of Pandoras box we are opening by going through with this. Heres the idea I have about that. As a species can we be wise enough to let nature take its course and let humanity develop as its supposed to, with time.

heres the funny thing though can we afford NOT to do it? because in by unlocking our genetic codes maybe we can further longevity and prevent who how many future catastrophes. The problem is viruses mutate with us. Can we afford to wait for something to come along that might take too long to kill or find a cure for. I don't fear the science I fear the people controlling it.

Yeah thats what I'm saying but what if thats NOT our specific path in evolution what if because we have survived to a certain point we have discovered that sometimes even unconstructive genetic material can harbor something useful thus we allow someone like Stephen hawking to survive because his knowledge for instance could lead to furthering the rest of the gene pools existence. I'm not saying this is an intelligence I'm saying its us what if that is our natural version of selection. Instead of saying kill everything off but the elite save everything and you can sometimes get something that you might not have expected to be useful. I don't know for certain of course.

Of course it doesn't because its not alive Evolution is a process and the process is our reproductive actions. The thing is that WE as intelligent far thinking beings (for the most part) understand that even those who "the wild" would consider lame might have something to contribute. Who knows perhaps it was this very instinct which allowed the first slightly weaker caveman to use a tool to defend himself because he wasn't strong enough to use his hands. Thus he survived and taught others how to do this which in turn made our species stronger then the sabretooth tiger overall.

???

05-09-2005, 08:40 AM

Human is intelligent to manipulate objects and to communicate using speech. Thanks to ur curiosity we discover science, just like we discover fire.

The primary difference between humans and other animals is our ability to communicate using speech. And this brought about the possibility of complaining to a higher authority. A non-human animal who's mate has been killed by a rival cannot make its feelings known to the rest of the troop, to the rest of its "society", if you like. But once speech was developed, the social cohesion which must have evolved almost instantly is of a different quality and nature to that of any animal species. This is because we no longer react purely on instinct, but upon a unique ability to empathise with the feelings of a fellow human being. Unlike any animal we can put ourselves in the position of someone who has been wronged or hurt in some way, and this in turn is because of the ability of another human to express how they feel about a particular wrong in direct terms.

Because of this unique social cohesion, the dominant entity, the leader, has to do more than impose his rule and domination by his strength - he has to demonstrate wisdom and judgement.

Just like any animals in this planet. Mother give food to survive and from there you learn.

Hell, you can train a monkey, a perrot, a dog..ect to do crazy stuffs ! It's not question of been born with, it's all about Training + [ Education x Time ]

Everyday you learn something new.

Squibbit

05-09-2005, 09:22 AM

argh, I'm still too busy, but I'm gonna come back to this
later tonight, cause it's pretty interesting :)

u got some nice thinking there, greynite1,
our scientists and thinkers might be good,
but no way are they perfect , plenty room
for what if's , I think :curious:

Wi_2

05-09-2005, 10:26 AM

i see it as a noisy line of ability..

i you draw yourself u'll see that u'll learn in steps.. something just snaps and u upgraded a bit more..
people with so called 'talent' are just those who get big leaps in the beginning.. and are just 'lucky'.
but then again aometimes u get stuck for a long time without really learning much..

the same story with einstein.. he is no genius.. no superman.. he worked real damn hard for what he did.. REAL hard.. and thats what u should if u wanna draw..
simple as that.. do and thou shalt learn.
meaning that YOU should DO it, not have your body automaticly draw cause ull het stuck.. keep attention to it and 'learn' from every step..

just THINK.
if u draw from life don't copy the bloody lines like this chick from the right side of the brain stuff does.. that's bull.. what u need is feel for form and light.. a library of emotions object stuff you can express through art.

for example when u want to draw a dude.. look at his basic shape.. his clothing. his nose,
'damn' that nose is is hooked.. 'hey.. the nose is hooked.. aahh.. ' draw that.. feel how you go around it.. in and out of depth..
how ur pen should flow from nosetip to the side to the corner of the eye.. over the eye.. pierce it and touch the brain.. . blood.. bloooodd.. see this in your head.. actually. 'feel' it in your head.. then think about how it would look like and draw it..
don't think of art as a magic superpower.. its not at all.. seriously.

but thats too easy!!!??!!..

..sorry too let u down.. it actually is easy... but doing it is the hard part.. and you have to do it.. ALOT.. really really ALOT to be good at is.. u need to learn how the world is seen .. how it works.. this takes time 'mkay!

coCoKNIght

05-09-2005, 10:28 AM

but dolphins do also communicate with each other. The problem is they cannot write it down, save knowledge for the future.
But then again, somehow this happens anyway. Animals just KNOW what's good for them to eat and what not and so on... Many questionmarks...

???

05-09-2005, 10:34 AM

http://www.robinprior.net/Images/image002.jpg

As i said before, We can manipulate objects thanks to our arms and hands & communicate using speech.

:) Work hard, yeah, that's definatly true, though there are still people who just get better faster, though they don't work harder, mostly they don't work hard at all...
For example in art school, when we had this coal courses, I was just making the better drawings as my colleage who had already drawn with coal before and who was working really hard to improve his skills, while I was not drawing more than nesessary...

DogmaD

05-09-2005, 10:55 AM

Very interesting thread. I have been reading through all the posts. Isn't drawing a combination of a whole lot of factors? Yes, there can be some genetics involved. In the form of hand - eye coordination, some might get this a little sooner than others. But i think it is something that can be thought and practiced on. But far more important things about someones personality come into play, the urge that they have something to communicate with others through a visual medium.

I personally feel, and i think or guess most artist probably do on some level that we work to that one masterpiece we create that holds everything we would ever want to tell about ourselves and the way we percieve our environment or life. The struggle comes when you have to get that mental picture done in your mind and then also have developed the skill to bring this picture into reality. I think it is that urge that keeps an artist going, working hard to get the skills to do right to that emotion or message they want to communicate to the world. In the end the creativity you show will become equally important as the technical skills you have mastered. So you won't get there with just hand - eye coordination, you also need something interesting you want to communicate with the world. And this is something you don't get at birth, this is something you build through life and experience.

Oh, i also had something to say about evolution, off-topic, but oh well. Natural evolution is build around survival of the ones in a group who can deal with a certain disadvantage, not only the strongest or fittest. Some might thinks humanity has evolved past this point, where we are not affected by nature that much anymore. But look around once more and you will know you are wrong. Nature still has a very firm grip on us. We may not have a specific predator that takes down the weak in our society. But there are other things, like diseases that still target certain things. Nature did not choose to target something on purpose, but by natural selection of certain diseases, a disease that is effective keeps on going as long as it has something to feed on.

For example look at aids. The entire strength of this disease is that it transfers through body fluids, in fact very specific ones. You would not think this disease to be so strong, in fact it can be countered very easely, just by not having sex with just anyone. But it is interesting to see that such a disease by randomness comes to existence, hitting humanity and current societies in its core enjoyments, where having sex with anyone has never been so easy. Making it a weakness that nature has found a way to exploit, not by thought, but by random changes in virusses. These things stun me, how randomness can create such effects, changing the balance in nature. All you have to do is wait until some humans become immune to aids and in natural ways that group would become the one choosen to continue on. In fact, some already are immune to it. A lot of white people ( i know Americans use a different word for it, but here we just call white people..white :) ), already have high resistance or immunity to it. Something thought to come from a dark time in Europe when the plague had Europe in its grip. But again something overcome by mutation. Not only making some of us immune to the plague, but also to aids. Anyway, there was no real point behind this, just that humanity is not free of nature yet, and that i am very glad it is not, where some like to think we are.

Oh, small adition. I would like to respond to Squibbit:

dude, don't i know that. I think the whole evolution theory is mostly humbug.
At least it rules out god cause no god would have thought of anything as stupid
as that. Nothing wrong with progress, but it's been like thousands of years and
people are still fighting so where's the progress in that ? Even evolution should
have realized by now it's not what people need. Then again maybe evolution is
warlike. That would leave me out of evolution cause i don't believe in wars.
I'm sorry , I'd just like to think that if there would be evolution it would be
about progress but it don't look like that. What's those news about them scientist
having figured out there's genes that cause fatness n stuff? So we're like built
to fail and go bad?

Yes, people are fighting. But we have been given every tool we need to stop fighting. It is a decision some make, the alternatives often not very attractive. Evolution is not something that acts in our best interests. Like said before, it is random and oppertunistic, with no long term goal. Sure, there can be a gene that causes fatness. But who says fatness is a bad thing? Does fatness stop us from living, or creating children? People might die early because of it, but nature always favors the ones who create children and die soon after their job is done creating them. Fat can be usefull in lots of environments. Think about cold environments for example. Look at all those arctic creatures, they have masses of fat. Just because some don't percieve it as beautifull does not mean it does not have its uses. Built to fail and go bad? Both are human perceptions, all in the eye of the beholder. Nature does not deal in these concepts, we do. Are they important? Yes, i think they are. They are one of those things that give faith that there is a god, something greater that has more knowledge ,power and above all understanding than we do.

???

05-09-2005, 11:55 AM

people are still fighting so where's the progress in that ?

A male lion doesn't just eat every other lion because he can. An elephant doesn't just trample every other elephant because he can. Co-operation is a part of even the most basic of life.

DogmaD

05-09-2005, 12:13 PM

A male lion doesn't just eat every other lion because he can. An elephant doesn't just trample every other elephant because he can. Co-operation is a part of even the most basic of life.

Offcourse it is. But nature is oppertunistic. It does what is in its best interest. An elephant won't trample another elephant because it has shown that having other elephants around helps keep the young safe. The elephants that did trample eachother could not protect their youngs, and so those got eaten. A lion won't eat another lion, but they will fight for the females to save their own bloodline.

I don't really get your point to be honest. :) Do you think it is all peace and love in nature? It is just balance. When lions start eating all the prey around at some point they will die out because there is no food left. Balance is back when the number of lions is down and the prey gets a chance to grow in numbers again.

???

05-09-2005, 12:25 PM

Do you think it is all peace and love in nature?

A lion killing a deer wouldn't be a moral issue but a survival issue - just like a man killing a cow is not a moral issue. A lion will not generally kill another of it's own kind for the mere sake of it, and neither will a human. It will only be 'wrong' or 'right' depending on what angle you view it from. As a victim it's wrong, as the killer it's right.

I used to be buddist, but not anymore. :p

Desert-of-Seth

05-09-2005, 01:39 PM

I never really studied drawing. The art class in HS was a joke, and the ONE painting class I took wasn't anything to write home about either. My work is basically what I taught myself. My family didn't believe in a career in art, so it was always something I did when I was by myself or needed to mentally get away from my family for a while.

the same here...my father wanted me to study maths and be an engineer like him,and my mom wanted me to study literature...I tore out a thousand tongues to make them see how serious i was in drawing :(

Btw,how is art going for you? Still having problems?

Wi_2

05-09-2005, 05:00 PM

TO COCOKNIGHT.. didn't really read the rest.. sorry bout that..

thats what i mean.
people think in different ways. this comes from experience/choices made/seen in life.
some people are scared because of these.. some try.. some decided to be tough basterds..
its really really complex. yet a simpel base (bases..basic?? ..)

ok.. u know the hopy popy poulare people..??! u undertand how MUCH this going after other people to feel safe thing affects their life.. their ways of thinking.. if they still know how do to so really..

ok.. then u must understand this also applies to drawing..
its the way u go about it.. u can be drawing for years in the 'wrong' way. and then snap!!.. something changed.. u think a little bit differently.. u see a bit different.. maybe alot..

THIS is what i see as talent.. its totaly how why and when u do things..
even the mood u were in the first time u started drawing has a mayor effect.

the food u ate that was sooo damn good u were in a happy mood..
know the thing that when your happy thing are so much easier??..

staring to see the complexity.. i beleive this has the biggist influence on drawing.. or life for that matter.. genetics is the machine.. u decide how to use it.

so yeah.. there has to be a perfect way tro learn to draw for everyone.. but its sifferent for everyone.. and therefore the only thing that does work is doing it.. and wayting for those snaps.. this can take long this can take a sec.. depends totaly on how why and when..

the best u can do is prob to try as much as possible.. diff mat.. diff moods.. diff places.. with people around.. withouth..
draw from life.. from head..

what i can say is that u should never 'copy' see and create it yourself..

CREATE.. thats the big word.. not copy. create.. build destroy 'even this is creation if u think about it'

MAKE IT YOUR OWN

the best way i can think of to learn art and develop your so called talent..

Squibbit

05-09-2005, 08:42 PM

The more complex the organism, the more likely the mutation will be a negative one (not helping survival).

so if there was a god it would be a disease- ridden piece of crap , unless it consisted
of several beings, humans , for example, or dolphins, or everything

This is bad for the individual, but necessary for the survival of any species

why is a mutation harmful ? what purpose does it serve to have someone be allergic to
cats, for example, or nuts ? hmm. viruses are made and mutated by evolution?
So evolution is a thing that alters life , randomly damaging and killing it with some
stuff , making it resistant to some other stuff it plays around with ? So evolution just
is, but isn't necessary for anyone's well being or survival. It's kind of an unharnessed
lightning. We don't want to be hit by lightning, but like electric lights and our pretty cars
and cell phones. We don't want to be ill or allergic but are happily resistant to all venoms,
diseases , cold heat, etc. and to be able to see in darkness and have perfect taste and
smell.
So evolution is not nice or cruel , it just doesn't have much clue ?

It's the instinct of aggression, of attack, of letting anger take over and do it to your enemy before he does it to you. In short, the instinct to compete, and to win, or to die trying. IMO it's one of the noblest qualities of mankind... in fact of all life

I hate it when i let anger take me over and i do something stupid. People rarely
seem to do something very smart after this fashion. "do it to your enemy before
he does it to you" sounds rather paranoid, haha , u on a humorous streak?
I need no agression toward another human to get by. Nor do i see it one bit noble.
Man u must be laughing , seeing me respond this seriously,hehe.
Healthy trying and sportsmanship is another thing , yea and hard work ,too.

About tampering genetics , as long as it's righting wrongs it's ok.

argh, i thought about this way more than i wrote, even had to type alot twice
cause i accidently erased some.So tired. But it's fun to ponder about stuff like this
every once in a while. Actually i think about stuff like this all the time, *sigh*

OptimusDinkus

05-09-2005, 09:01 PM

allright look, heres my take on "tallent". Hard work makes the image, but what makes the image unique is the persons ability to see, and we all see different as well, we all experiance things completly different. Ill say this, if 10 people were to redraw for instance leonardo's muscle studies, not one person will draw it the same way, ever, in fact others might see even more than what he saw. that person that saw more happened to have a keen eye for seeing detail that the others couldnt and also have a style of line thats different from them as well. That eye however had to be trained from a mass amount of work to see all of the details. the unique eye that we all see with is the talent, the amount of work makes the technique. However all of this is bullshit if the concept isnt origional. Pleanty of people cant draw worth a damn but have incredible ideas. Technical excelence doesnt get you far, its only half the battle, the idea is what counts. We all know the girl who is 7 and can paint photorealistic pictures right? (she was on opra). In her case she had a great enviorment to work in, all the time in the world to do it, and on top of that her stuff still has a form that she can only see and inscribe. In hindsight however she cant see what a somewhat less driven individual sees, in fact she probably cant make an exact replica of davinci's work or any artist, and vic versa. We all see uniquely, but some of us might not see as much as the next person so we work hard at it to get to that persons level.

???

05-09-2005, 09:20 PM

So evolution is not nice or cruel , it just doesn't have much clue ?

Meat as made us evolve millions of years ago.
Meat when to our gene from time to time, that's why whe are more devlopped now.
Now we still eat meat, but it as low effect on us because our gene as devlopped from generations

According to our teeth, whe used to eat vegetables and fruits. That's why whe have to brush our teeth all the time.

http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/lectures/L7-Primates.GIF

You cannot compare those with other exixting primates from today: http://www.creationsensation.com/MuseumStore/primate%20skulls.htm

From taking the skull's genes, scientist as made this tree of evolution.

DogmaD

05-10-2005, 07:29 AM

Oh, i still have something to say about the whole evolution thing. For as far as i know, only micro evolution has been proven to exist. Macro evolution on the other hand has not been proven yet ( even a lot of counter arguments have been made, in the form of certain "simple" evolutions, that have a very, very close to 0 chance of occuring, yet they must have occured to get us up to this point, and make the macro evolution stick ). I am not saying that it did not happen, but as long as there is no proof. It is about as strong an argument as that the earth is flat...So don't go running after science before you have got all the facts, it has been known to be wrong in the past. ;)

I am into a lot of science myself, and the more you are involved in science. The more you start to understand how little we actually know, and how much we are just using, because it seems right. Not because it has been proven to be right ( and we all know by now that something that seems right, often isn't ). We still have lots of things to learn.

MrGrinch

05-10-2005, 08:50 AM

Very true, science really isn't "fact" the way a lot of people believe it to be. It's simply a hypothosis that seems to explain the situation, untill the universe does something to prove it wrong. Then we're forced to rethink our explanation and change it to fit new information. Science is an ever growing and evolving thing, and long held "facts" are always being overturned for more updated hypothesies.

Stahlberg

05-10-2005, 01:08 PM

I need no agression toward another human to get by. Nor do i see it one bit noble.
Man u must be laughing , seeing me respond this seriously,hehe.
No, I'm being completely serious. You have to take the good effect with the bad effect, if the source is something vital to survival. The cause of it all is something noble imo, simply because without it we would not be here. Do you mean you would consider the total extinction of all life on earth just to stop war and aggression among humans? And call that noble? You see what I mean?

Imagine you didn't live in a civilised time.
[Civilisation has only been around for a few thousand years after all. Hardly a blink of an eye from evolution's point of view. Evolution hasn't even had time to adjust to the fact that we invented fire, let alone everything else that happened after that.]
Imagine you're walking along with your family, foraging or hunting or looking for a new cave. An enemy attacks you - a bear, maybe, or hunters from another tribe, looking for slaves or meat or just some fun. You say to them: "Excuse me, but can't we solve this without violence?" They kill you and your whole family. Now tell me, how noble was that? :)

(Note: smiley does not indicate joking, only polite friendliness.)

jmBoekestein

05-10-2005, 07:00 PM

The point of no return I think is where our species has learned collectively to name things properly and can communicate about them with insight. This will lead for communication that is useful between larger groups of people without them being confused or misguided about an outcome that is being talked about, ie. there is a dispute as to which country should take a contract and about which technology to use for the purpose(being any). bith have quite different effects and the effects are complex, if anywhere there arises some dispute as to how it really is and not which is better you are stuck. Take that out of proportion and you've got things like wars about religion or who should live where. And basically without naming abstract processes in our lives such as the creations of disputes and love and anger and hate and famine there is absolutely no way to solve them. Just thought I'd mention this. :wavey:

greynite1

05-10-2005, 07:28 PM

Mr Grinch:

But the thing about Science is alot of its ideas are based on viewable, measurable and proven observations which can be repeated. Thats what makes it more reliable then say regular legend and mythology or saying the gods did it. The difference to me is that in science the explanations and ideas CAN change as more evidence is unearthed for things to go one way or the other. Mythologic or religious beliefs don't change nearly as often.

Stahlberg:

hehehe yep life in the wild. Its fantastic. which is why in my opinion why the need to be violent is indeed a neccesary and noble impulse of evolution and creation. If you want to be peaceful and happy you still need to defend yourself. you don't get safety and security for nothing. we live in probably THEY most peaceful and civilized area and times. Most people can roam about without too much worry in most places of that kind of thing happening. *although some places in the inner city you got to watch your step*

AND

heheh to the original subject of this thread I now definitely believe that wanting to draw and draw good for most people is all about practice. before i started my classes I drew like a 5 year old. (I have the proof) but after and with alot of practice under my belt my drawings actually look like what I'm trying to draw. Its ALOT of hardwork there are NO short cuts. There are techniques but no short cuts you have to practice and get good. :buttrock: so continues my quest to stop sucking :)

ReBootedOne

05-10-2005, 08:43 PM

Animating and drawing are the two things I absolutely love to do, and as such they have emerged as my 'talents.'
Dunno which came first, like someone said, it's a chicken/egg scenario.....

I don't know if it's really a genetic thing, but I have noticed that people with skill at drawing are usually also gifted with a good memory...

Yeeeeah..... *scratches head* Something like that...

Squibbit

05-10-2005, 10:17 PM

You have to take the good effect with the bad effect, if the source is something vital to survival

Humm,there's a choice ? Oh i get it ,you're saying like evolution deals us good and
bad cards and we should accept that ? Why does it help our survival ? Isn't it just
random ? If it can't kill us with animals cause we would see it coming it would try
viruses like ebola . If we would choose to be outside evolution , evolution shouldn't
attack us cause we'd not be part of it and from there on we would choose our way of
advancement instead of it just being random for good or bad. Maybe awakening of
intelligence starts they journey of departing from evolution ? Maybe some people
are still in the grips of evolution , killing and raping all nobly for whatever god, idea or
feat of strength while others move on ?

Man , u gotta explain again how a group of warriors from the neighboring
village attacking you and your family for fun is so noble that you couldn't live
without it ?

Yea I'd run away unless I was like Conan. If I was Conan I'd kill the bear and
thank it for presenting itself to me as bountiful food supplies. If it was the people
attacking i'd disarm their strongest ones and try to talk or just kill em all if they
insisted on acting silly. I wouldn't feel that to be noble, maybe a good fight,
with all the adrenaline pumping, but definitely loss of life, people who would
have been maybe smart and helpful, even friendly and funny if they had learned
better and shrug off evil (or stupid, pick one u like) violence.
And if I had ran I so hope all the rest of my family ran and survived too. Sure
I'd help them too if I could and wasn't evilly (or uncontrollably or or stupidly,
pick one u like) panicking or something. I wouldn't feel noble about leaving any
family members behind, as a slow one might lag, but in such a situation, since
I couldn't defend reason, there wouldn't be a noble outcome anyways.
-oh by the way, in my opinion , it isn't fun to go around causing harm to other
people, then again some evolutionary mutation might make it so to somebody,
and that would be rather sad, cause even now we see such characters so often
in courtrooms and jails, as it's not really beneficient to have such people
roaming around free .
Ok, getting late (1 am here) , but i'm trying to type this through.
Now then having escaped, I'd move to a safer area , but i just might
make contact with the other tribe again , maybe talk to a loner from
a safe distance and see if that person could be reasoned with.
This would be extremely unlikely, though, cause people who hunt other
people for fun would just easily start hunting me again and that wouldn't be
fun. Hey maybe evolution would be there to make me a quick runner or
kill me off as a noncombatant, but if it (or evil spirit, or satan, or smurfs, or god,
pick one u like) wasn't there to mess up with stuff in the first place with
it's noble, raping (<--another mutation) warriors and other cheerful fellas,
I wouldn't have a thing to worry about in the first place, nothing to threaten
my survival.

hey how about: evil invented fears and then it made guys fear they might sound
or act like girls if they did whatever and then it would bombard them with such
fears from time to time at random , all the time offering refuge from the fears if
they started using words like "sh*t, f**k, "biat*h", or "aggessive behavior is
noble" for people who feared to be turned into cowardly peaceful farmers ?
While all the time they'd just have to stop and think a bit to know they were
acting ok , or that they could at any time vent out as much aggression they
wanted as long as they didn't hurt anybody, or break any valuable property.

PS. I don't really believe in God ,god, gods, spirits, etc. , but I do have
some faith in people :)

And i might decide to be a peaceful farmer, but I might as well (or also) pick up
kickboxing,car racing, parachuting, hunting, yodling, or I might step into the
cockpit of a combat helicopter me and friends built for fun (against nonliving
targets, mind you) and go blasting off mountaintops, trees and mock villages
inhabited by robot soldiers.

JMcWilliams

05-10-2005, 10:47 PM

edit:
And about evolution having stopped working for us, I agree. We've stepped outside of Nature, no longer its slaves. Soon we will have turned the tables completely, making Nature our slave. In just a few more years we'll be able to clean up our own DNA, much faster and more efficiently than Nature ever could. There are of course dangers here, but the point is we shouldn't worry about evolution not working anymore. We have much bigger things to worry about. :)

Nature will adapt. No matter our technology, there is something out there that will get us in the end. :D

MrGrinch

05-10-2005, 11:09 PM

greynite1: Oh I certainly wasnt badmouthing science as a reasonable explanation for the way our world works. It's by far more accurate than myth and legend. I simply pointed out that it's not a solid, unchanging fact...it's open to being re-written as we learn more things, like you say.

Squibbit: "evil invented fears and then it made guys fear they might sound
or act like girls if they did whatever" Actually, our society invented this idea that certain acts were male and certain ones female. And that acting outside your gender was somehow bad. Just a side note, it's a concept I'm interested in.

jmBoekestein

05-11-2005, 12:05 AM

I want to add another one...:)...

How to prove god exists then?( Inlight of squibbits post which seems to me like you're questioning fundamental paradoxes in theories of basic logic dictating our lives, nice point at that)

What if all this real stuff(the universe)had to be created, then there would have to be an end to all things since you cannot have an infinite line that starts somewhere. This seems to concur with reality, everything changes and ends. The only other option I might see here is everlasting change, a continues form inverting on it's self, but nonetheless changing into something. But I find that a far stretch, lol.
So then something would have created all this, and since there was no cause and effect, the real deal here is someone/something wanted this all to behave in a certain way. Since there was a reason to make anything happen this way or not. wanted intended, all seem like somethings to me so there is another start, with an ending, hmm...Point being, there is obviously structure beyond measure of our intelligence. Intelligence means life to some...rather proof of life...So that's our god...

So you have proof he exists, if you doubt his intentions having created you and others, rationally I'd say you'd be well within your capacity to make choices. Do good, then God is good and so on. Since you are discussing life's choices and options. This is neither off-topic imo, nor un called for. You ARE drawing to conclusions, and those will influence us all through your actions.

Probably skipped things and examples to clarify the logic, hope it is readable.:thumbsup: Some nice efforts to understand our silly planet here. Why not make sense of it for ourselves and eachother, and of-course the brethren creatures of our planet.:D

LOL
Jan-Mark.

JMcWilliams

05-11-2005, 12:31 AM

I want to add another one...:)...

What if all this real stuff(the universe)had to be created, then there would have to be an end to all things since you cannot have an infinite line that starts somewhere. This seems to concur with reality, everything changes and ends.
So then something would have created all this, and since there was no cause and effect, the real deal here is someone/something wanted this all to behave in a certain way.

Jan-Mark.

Hmm, but perhaps time, physics and everything we use to rationalise our existance are just as much constructs of this particular universe and may not necessarily apply outside it. Time is relative and perhaps our reality of universal causality is just an interpretation. After all, we all see the world as an interpretation from our brain. My point being I guess, is that cause and effect may be something that comes simply as part of our reality, but if it does not exist outside of our reality then the cause and effect arguement for a God is not so compelling. :D

A Worms world is series of surfaces, it has no eyes... so I'm sure it has no capacity to ever imagine (if they ever could imagine) a world of bouncing photons. Hence, perhaps we cannot imagine outside the confines of cause and effect because we have no capacity to do so.

My head hurts ;)

jmBoekestein

05-11-2005, 12:49 AM

Nonetheless the worm evolved into something quite similar to me, ahem... well , to continue...:rolleyes:

The pattern is too consistent, for instance splitting photons maintain the same properties even if they seem two photons after being split and are even hundreds of miles apart. Why? Because the Creator is keeping it real, lol. Why would the world be created like that, simply to avoid any unnecessary time wasted on anything that doesn't matter to the intended creation/videogame/cheesy movie with a sappy ending or something else the Creator had in mind. So there's a start, because it ends there. Hmm... inverting it allready, nuts. Well this is a rather singular argumentatin and would need lots of examples to actually stand to reason, but it works for me actually.

But suffice it to say that logic, means causality which does not necessarily mean effect(s) but more so reason. Voila, you actually can twist that if you like but it means that there's a system to it. Sort of...

JMcWilliams

05-11-2005, 01:11 AM

Yeh, I guess at the end of the day, I just think that understanding the creation of everything is probably beyond the scope of our minds right now.

???

05-11-2005, 01:20 AM

the universe.

The univerce is an unlimited number of scale (extra dimensions), wich means there's more then 1 universe / just like sand make a desert, just like numbers are numbers are unlimited.

Take a fiew seconds and look at this java animation:
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/...csu/powersof10/ (http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/)

From the atoms to billions of galaxies... and there more beyond... there's infinite

Hehe, I'm not following you at all, but that's ok, I know I'm not very smart compared to the guys who's profession it is to discuss these kind of things all day long. And since they haven't been able to prove or disprove God in hundreds of years of thinking, I think it's a pretty safe bet we won't be able to either. :) Seriously, there was a time couple of decades ago when I was trying to, but that only led me to see the futility of it. Any proof for or against that anyone could ever come up with, can be shot down (using impeccable logic) by someone on the other side.

Squibbit, I'm not sure why you're so opposed to me using the word noble. Let me use a different word then. 'Good'. It's good that we have life on earth, right? Not bad, right? From this one single factoid follows everything else. All the suffering, all the art, all life on earth. It CAN'T be any different, it's all a single logical progression, a single 3 billion year automated process. Remove aggression in humans, and you have to remove it in all animals (because that's where it came from). With it goes any drive to succeed, to reach any sort of goal (because it's all one and the same part of the brain causing it). So with it goes all evolution. And therefore, all life. See my reasoning?
I'm not sure what you mean about evolution acting on us today. The only power evolution has over us is over a period of time so vast it defies imagining. Hundreds of thousands of years would be necessary for us to notice any changes in our genome, except the smallest ones. (We are much more alike to each other than chimpanzees are, for instance. Homogenous Homo Sapiens.)

You are right, we are well under way to disconnecting ourselves completely from evolution, in another generation or two we will be outside of it, like a chicken out of an egg. There are dangers but we must never fear change simply because it's change. Check out this transhumanist website. http://www.aleph.se/Trans/

???

05-11-2005, 01:39 AM

Unfortunaly, most peoples still beleave that a ZEUS gave them the power to draw very well. Wich is a totaly selfish explanation.

Everyone can do it, it just need a little effort.

leeyiankun

05-11-2005, 03:16 AM

So you're saying that we're finally following our own intended path, instead of the path that Mother-nature set out for us in the first place?

Then we need to be very careful indeed.

Squibbit

05-11-2005, 06:09 AM

I know I'm not very smart compared to the guys who's profession it is to discuss these kind of things all day long

Not to worry about that, I'm not very smart about great many things, for example,
I don't have a clue what boekestein is talkin about, all his stuff seems too vague,
there's nothing I can grab in his text, so unless he starts speaking in a more
comprehendable way, I'll just continue to ignore him, hehe, sorry , boeke.
The thing is, we want to learn and see if there's some fresh new thoughts on
a subject matter were interested in out there, for example, and thus we're having
this discussion here :)

???- your list, while beautiful , doesn't tell us when emotions surfaced. Would it be
possible to add it and with maybe a little explanation on how and why they came to be ?

Nature will adapt
perhaps, but we're not sure which way, it could spell the exctinction of
great many forms of life, say the coral reefs, that are already dying in so
many places , because they cannot take the fluctuation of water temperature
that well, so if it gets too cold hor hot for them, they die off and they are
very sensitive. That's really a shame cause coral reefs with all that life is
one of the most beautiful things there is. Sooo, if we want to preserve those
life forms we need to act and not let nature take it's course and turn
everything into 3 or four different plants and animals that can survive no
matter what we'll do, happily living in toxic, disease-ridden swamps ,or
what have you.

Hmm, but perhaps time, physics and everything we use to rationalise our existance are just as much constructs of this particular universe and may not necessarily apply outside it

Yea there could be, for example , another infinite universe , where the building
blocks of this one were designed and then just poured in to get stuff happening.
Maybe it needed a good kick to start and thus the 'big bang' stuff.

It's good that we have life on earth, right?

life just is , if it wasn't it wouldn't be bad cause none of us would be there
to say it.

would like to write more but now, gotta run to work , laters ,people

jmBoekestein

05-11-2005, 02:56 PM

He Squibbit, no worries...:D...I got my brain in a twist more than twice writing it.

I'll be skipping along untill I think I have something else to add.

???

Good point, illustrates to me how hard someone has been working to make all this for what it is now. Apparently mother nature wasn't sure when she started out. :)

Franco.ku

05-22-2005, 09:12 PM

Wow the response is amazing. I was only expecting a couple of people to reply.
I think I'm gonna look up an art classes in my area and get practising. Maybe my kids will be better drawers if I practise hard! :D

Jeet

08-16-2005, 02:23 PM

Friends...

I saw this thead first time... b4 i read all the comments.... My opinion about the subject......................................
...

Better Drawings skill = speed + precision + accuracy...

This three things only those people can archieve who are have this three things in their life also. Drawing is the reflection of a person.

Now you can start thinking about your and your friends drawing skill....

Get to know about this three parameteres and compare it with their drawing....

Surely i will wait for your comments....

Regards

Jeet.

frontjibi

08-16-2005, 04:40 PM

Whoo!!! This thread is old! I just came across searching on "drawing" and found this nice big topic. I haven't read all of it yet because i was so wanted to give my thoughts on it.

Are people "natuarly talented"! Of course! Everyone is gifted in this world! I stongly believe this! You have the gift, now it's up to you to use it well. Let's take an example. Drawing.

First of all, let me say that none of my parents are artistic in anyway. As far as i know, not even my grandparents can draw. There isn't even a single cusion of mine who can draw. And there isn't a one person in my family who is able to draw. So as you can see, i am not genetic in anyway. But that doesn't mean people aren't born with drawing talent geneticly. For me, i am naturaly talented in drawing. Like every other natural talented drawer, I've been drawing before i could even walk, talk or whatever. You wouldn't believe i turned my house into when i was very very little. Not a space in the house you would find empty. Every place was filled with my drawngs and doodles.

But forget about my experience. I want to talk about something else. People who can draw natuarly are better than a person who can't draw at all in everyway of drawing. A person who doesn't have a talent in drawing can draw and draw and draw for years and years. They may produce a fine quality work. But that work won't even be close to those who can draw natuarly. There is a fine line here. It will sound harsh but it's the truth. People with no drawing talent shouldn't even try drawing and getting into that business. That doesn't mean you can't draw for fun. But it would only make you look bad compared to those naturally talented drawers. Your work won't and will never be close to them. So why even try? You most likely would have another talent that you haven't discovered. Go find that.

Now for naturaly talented drawers. Drawing is no problem to you. You can produce excellent drawings if you put your mind to it. Motovation and Creativity are two things that every natural talented drawer should have. You must have these two to really succeed in drawing. All i can say is, motovation comes from working with other "Talented drawers". For creativity, i'd say just get out and explore the nature, explore the enviroment, go camping, watch movies, read books.

" You'll never be creative in drawing sitting home all day".

cederron

08-16-2005, 05:39 PM

Drawing is all about volumes, animals use her mind to calculate volumes constantly especially predator ones, to calculate distance between the prey, in case of hominids even more to calculate what force they must apply to throw a weapon and hit the prey and things like that.
So there's some connection between drawing-volumes-hunting.

That can explain why some people is naturaly talented at drawing, it can be in our genes.
Women where not predators at the early stages of humankind her work was to collect fruit and take care of the children so they are not as good as men in calculating volumes, and some people sais this is the reason why they drive worse than men. This is what some ppl say i haven't verified that but seems true.

That's all, sorry for my english, post in here is a good practice!

beSigned

08-16-2005, 09:42 PM

Okay here are my 2 cents. After reading this thread (and actually even making "my own" in General Discussion section about a week ago) and thoughts of all of it's repliers I decided to write not exactly what I think but exactly what I do feel right now.

In my opinion considering someone as talented is more envy then anything else. Envy inflicted by laziness for hard work. As an example I can use ice-hockey which I played about 6 years when I was younger. There were always some newcomers which were considered as total noobs by the whole team but match by match they were becoming better and better and every single goal they scored was considered as luck in the first 6 months. Afterwards every single goal was considered as talent. The couch tried to get us up with saying something like "you see? do it like him!" [him = the newcomer] and we always answered "but he's the talented one, I can't do it as he does because I'm not the gifted one!" (or at least we thought exactly this so). And so most of these "non-talents" but "older-in-duty" players got up and left the team and even stopped playing ice-hockey. So now I can ask myself (or even them who left) why don't we play in NHL now? They (not mine) answer would be "because we weren't good enought. we didn't have talent". But in fact it is because we all were lazy to work hard! There was nothing as talent in these who play in NHL nowadays and who used to be our teammates 10 years ago. There was only hard work! They didn't look after girls as much as we did, they didn't drink and didn't have fun as much as we did, they didn't care about anything else then ice-hockey as much as we did and that's the reason why they play in NHL and we do not. Just because of the laziness...

beSigned

08-16-2005, 09:50 PM

However, if you are in doubt about these thing about talent and stuff you really should learn some books by Paulo Coelho. He doesn't say anything exactly about talent but it might explain many things you doubt about.

http://www.paulocoelho.com

I can recommend well-known novel "The Alchemist". Everybody should simply follow their dreams... Nobody says you will find exactly what you dream of but you might find something even better.

You might say that Coelho is commercial author and blah blah blah... But there are many others VERY succesful people who wrote/write about the same things as he does, just used other words to describe it.

Alex Morris

08-17-2005, 09:46 AM

Oh boy what a thread..............

My take on "talent" is that its a balance between nature and nurture.
I think that most people have an innate ability to draw but for various reasons it never gets expressed much past childhood. Drawing is not just about artistic expression but is actually a tool for exploring the world through simple symbols up to full-on photo-realism. Most people don't really get much past the crude symbols of a child's painting without encouragement since they don't need to explore that much or lose interest on a certain level in the world around them. One thing that I think most artists have in common is an insatiable curiosity about the world around them.

I may be wrong, but I dont think that modern perspective and rendering techniques really appeared before the ancient greeks, but does this mean that the other civilisations were unartistic? This is where the nurture part comes in, as new ideas of representation (bigger world view etc?) come to the fore. So it is now a case of memes rather than genes driving the process. As these become more sophisticated then they have the potential to reach and affect more people - so I think that over time teaching techniques and understanding of psychology will improve and more people will "discover" and retain their innate talents.

As an aside, peoples physical abilities are less important I think. I remember reading somewhere about the physiology of seeing where only about 10% of people actually see stereoscopically (this freaked me out at the time as I'm one of the lucky ones who can). So 90% of people's depth perception is based on how big familiar objects appear rather than the difference in angle between the eyes. Being shortsighted myself I was also interested on how say Monet (and the Impressionists) depicted the world as he became increasingly blind - less vision = less art - I don't think so!

Just my two cents worth..........

rokxal

08-17-2005, 01:26 PM

A lot of talent is actual written in genes. Higher processes like drawing can always be broken down into fundamental states such as seeing, conceptualizing, and motor activity. The ability to see in volumes or stereoscopically as mentioned before is only innate to a selected 10% of the population. An sample test of this abilty would be like when a certain 3d figure was drawn and rotated and you were asked to pick the correctly rotated one. Conceptulizing is a mind process of taking abstract elements whether be taste, smell, and feeling, and representing them in a separate form. This is indirectly memory related as the people with more vivid memories have a larger database of events, scenes, experiences, feelings recorded and ready to use. The actual process of taking all the scattered information and conveying a solid form from selected bits is a entirely different matter. This is where a certain degree of training and education such as anatomy and composition would help but note that different people are more or less gifted in picking up these tidbits. Art prodegies can draw pieces with great composition without formal education and understanding why. Just keep in mind that before the masters could teach the students and before drawing books were ever published, some people could always draw what pleases the eye while others couldn't. Finally, motor skills is probably the only non-talent related state which can be trained and practiced upon. This typically applies to the ability to render what you've conceptualize or see and not what you know. Fortunately, technical skills such as hand/finger/wrist/arm control can be mastered over time.

Shonner

08-17-2005, 04:21 PM

3D geometric spacial recognition is tought and discussed about in school. There is nothing genetic about China designing most of the world's consumer products. It's their culture of education being first in life, even while communism tries to crush it, that can't be ignored.

genji2103

08-17-2005, 05:34 PM

it's obvious that some people are more talented than other but i don't believe only natural drawers only succed. i m not this king and yes im often jealous of those more talend than me. in fact i m sure i wil improve my technics.

i start to draw at the age of 9 because a friend helped me. then i draw at school like every one and was quite proud of it. i was dreaming that it would be my life. the only problem was my familly. they expected me to be a doctor. i tried to keep this dream quiet because i love them and stop drawing at university ( master in development econmics). my grand mother died 7 years ago. i m learning game design now and going to be specialised in special effects.

when i start this new studies i was quite depressed because most of studends were much more younger and skilled than me. now this time is over because i understood that drawing is only a technic. these people i used to hate are very good techniciens but only few of them were talended. if you work hard, you can reach the same level but talent is something personal indeed. talent comes from what you share with other, your emotions and it's not about technic.
i'm still dreaming and i hope these lines would cheer up those in need.
so... ganbatte kudasai!

ps: sorry for my english 'cause i'm just a froggy

Shonner

08-17-2005, 08:03 PM

Talent: a special often creative or artistic aptitude

Serkeien

08-17-2005, 10:26 PM

All through my life people have always told me that they envy my ability to draw. I've started to realize now that it's not an actual talent, but that ability comes from myself wanting to succeed. For me, if I decide that I want to learn how to draw something, I take a look at what other artists have done and set myself the goal of reaching that ability.

Okay this sounds really bad, but I think that if I didn't have the urge to be better than others at drawing/painting, then I wouldn't be talented at it at all.

Shonner

08-18-2005, 01:46 AM

this sounds really bad, but I think that if I didn't have the urge to be better than others at drawing/painting, then I wouldn't be talented at it at all.

It doesn't sound bad at all. It sounds like the truth of a strong character.

CGmonkey

08-18-2005, 10:42 PM

All through my life people have always told me that they envy my ability to draw. I've started to realize now that it's not an actual talent, but that ability comes from myself wanting to succeed. For me, if I decide that I want to learn how to draw something, I take a look at what other artists have done and set myself the goal of reaching that ability.

Okay this sounds really bad, but I think that if I didn't have the urge to be better than others at drawing/painting, then I wouldn't be talented at it at all.

We all have personal goals, and whatever they may be as long as they will realise who cares what the initial intentions were?

mangolass

08-19-2005, 02:47 AM

Yes, sure, just like no one is born with natural abilities in music, mathematics, and sports, and no one is born with any disabilities either... we're all born completely equal, little carbon-copies, or at least we have to pretend we are here in this forum, because otherwise some members will feel bad.

Quoted for agreement. Identical twins separated at birth and raised separately tend to have similar professions and interests more often than not ~ even if their parents did different things, they went to different schools, they share nothing but genes ~ if one is into art or music the other is more likely than average also to be.

Some people are afraid that if they admit the obvious truth that some people are born more gifted, more prone to be interested in certain things than others, that this would discourage people from working hard or believing that they could be great.

LT

Segvoia

08-19-2005, 12:51 PM

Whenever I've seen this topic raised on the internet, it appears as a nature versus nurture argument. From current science theories, it can be seen that genes may have marginal sway over whether a person is more inclined than others to be "gifted" in a certain area, but a greater part of it depends on nurture.

I have seen many gifted people who were creative when they were younger, but stopped painting completely because of life circumstances, or just for lack of nurturing their abilities or receiving encouragement from other artists. I've also seen instances where people from professions opposite art, such as law, have become artist or illustrators. David Cherry comes to mind.

I come from a mother and father who both have artistic abilities and in my own experience, I can say "natural talent" only plays so far. I took a year long hiatus from painting and found myself a little rusty when I started back up. Any skill can stand to be kept relevent and strong through practice.

Sil 369

08-21-2005, 05:54 AM

Has there ever been a case of someone getting amnesia, and when they come to, they suddenly have an innate ability to draw and paint like an artist? Or an innate talent at something, not necessarily artist-based? And if drawing is something innate to someone, can they lose it to amnesia? (I'm obviously guessing yes)

I'd really like to know...

FabioMSilva

08-21-2005, 07:57 AM

"it's in your genes"

Shonner

08-21-2005, 08:15 AM

Is collecting anime a genetic thing?

FabioMSilva

08-21-2005, 08:12 PM

Is collecting anime a genetic thing?

i think that's a blessing.

natedog1844

08-21-2005, 09:39 PM

I also have the belief that creative abilities through the arts have to do with genetic influences. Myself, my skills have been given a boost from both sides of my immediate family. There are several cousins on my fathers side who have excelled in the arts and have gone on to have great careers in the advertising and traditional painting, sculpting, etc. On my mothers side, she had an uncle who was a well known landscape painter in. My twin sister also shows sparks of natural ability, but chooses not to imbrace it. My point is that even if the creative talent bounces around, I am convinced that genetics have a huge part in the process. Hard work and the passion to make it real is important, but not the point.

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